Abstract
The issue of work–family balance has acquired rising prominence on the public policy agenda parallel to the feminization of the labour force in many countries around the world. Ipek Ilkkaracan draws upon case studies on seven OECD member countries in order to explore the variety of work–family balance environments and public policy debates that have emerged in these countries. She underlines the importance of an integrated approach to the development of both time-related work–family reconciliation policies such as care leave, its gender distribution and work hours, as well as provision and subsidization of care services. She also identifies strategies for moving the public policy agenda forward both in the North and the South pointing to the multitude of social and economic objectives that work–family balance policies serve.
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Notes
See Zacharias, Antonopoulos and Masterson (2012) for a discussion of the relationship between care deficits (or ‘time deficits’ to use their terminology) and poverty.
The research programme was led by Women for Women's Human Rights – New Ways, a feminist NGO based in Turkey, in partnership with Istanbul Technical University in 2008–2010. The discussion in this paper is based on the case studies developed under a common framework for this research programme and published in Ilkkaracan (2010), Sweden: Nyberg (2010), France: Silvera (2010), the Netherlands: Plantenga (2010), Spain: Beneria and Martinez-Iglesias (2010), South Korea: Peng (2010), Mexico: Matarazzo and Lopez-Ortega (2010), Turkey: Ilkkaracan (2010).
Silvera (2010) tracks the history of work–family reconciliation policies further back to late nineteenth century when the first public childcare centres were opened in France in 1881.
The 35 hours limit applies to workplaces with 20 or more employees; smaller firms abide by the 39-hour rule (Silvera, 2010).
This is in addition to maternity (16 weeks) and paternity leave (2 days).
Limited childcare pertains to children under three, while enrolment rates for the three–five age group is around 100 percent.
A high point of this conservative discourse was reached recently in 2012 as the Turkish Prime Minister called upon women to bear minimum three children each and called for an abortion ban. This was justified by the Minister for Family and Social Policies as a necessity if Turkey is to avoid the likelihood of the demographic crisis facing other countries. The Turkish strategy for avoiding the demographic crisis (making a moral call on women to bear more children and restricting access to abortion) stands in sharp contrast to the South Korean strategy where the State invests in child and elderly care. Obviously, the difference in female employment rates (half of adult women in South Korea versus only a quarter of women in Turkey) is a source of differences in country strategies.
References
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Gives the findings of a multicultural case study on women's care work in family and communities
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Ilkkaracan Ajas, I. Work–Family Balance and Public Policy: A cross-country perspective. Development 55, 325–332 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2012.52
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2012.52