Fédération
Européenne des
Femmes
Actives au
Foyer
FFEEFFAAFF
European
Federation of =of
Unpaid
Parents and
Carers at Home
ONG avec Statut Spécial d'Observateur * ONU - ECOSOC – UN * NGO holding Special Consultative Status
Membre de la Plate-Forme Européenne des ONGs sociales,  Member of the Platform of European Social NGOs,
du Lobby Européen des Femmes
the European Women’s Lobby
Textes français ci-dessous
FEFAF Submission
CONSULTATION ON POSSIBLE NEW EU MEASURES
IN THE AREA OF PATERNITY LEAVE
Stakeholders and principles in leave
As recognised in the consultation document, there are different types of leave
available to different stakeholders for different reasons and with different funding.
Maternity leave is composed of two elements, a physical and psychological
recuperation element and an element of establishing a bond with the child via care,
possibly including breastfeeding. Although recuperation can occur relatively quickly,
within a month or two, it is also possible that women to require a longer period of
time to recover. (Indeed, a small number of women have physical or psychological
issues from pregnancy and birth which may last for the remainder of their lives.)
Paternity leave is to allow the father to support the mother or to take over primary
caregiving excluding breastfeeding.
Parental leave can be taken by either parent in order to act as primary carer to a
dependent child.
Different types of paid and unpaid maternity, paternity and parental leave have
evolved across Europe, with a variety of funding arrangements. Most are partly or
fully tied to maternal employment and the social welfare system of the relevant State.
Some employers also make contractual or ex gratia payments to those employees who
take up different types of leave. (The OECD has compiled different member country’s
family supports, including leave entitlements and payments, into a database for ease
of comparison.1)
The primary stakeholders in maternity leave are the mother and child; in paternity
leave the father and child; and in parental leave parents and child. Secondary
stakeholders include employers and the state, while society and the economy in
general are also stakeholders, since supports to maternity leave and family impact on
long-term demographic trends and economic viability.
Current arrangements and provision for leave
So far, the debate on, and provision for, leave has, for the most part, centred on only
some of the stakeholders, specifically parents, employers and the given state’s welfare
budget; the public discussion is usually confined to ideological and employment
1
www.oecd.org/document/4/0,3746,en_2649_37419_37836996_1_1_1_37419,00.html
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grounds. This is an unsustainable situation, since direct and indirect family supports,
including maternity, paternity and parental leave, impact significantly on fertility
rates, which are below replacement rate everywhere in Europe. It also contributes to
the continuing gender gap in incomes, since much care work carried out by women
remains unpaid. The lack of recognition for care work means the existence of caring
responsibilities in families in all European countries is associated with greater levels
of poverty. In FEFAF’s opinion, it is time to change this situation.
Family supports in most European countries, until fairly recently, based on a
(married) breadwinner model of the family. Current proposals still assume that there
are two parents, both of whom are equally available, willing, and suited to the fulltime care of children. If maternity leave is inflexibly reduced to force fathers to take
up paternity leave, what happens to the children of single-parent families? This will
effectively mean that the children of single parents have a lesser entitlement to
parental care than the children of two-parent families in their early years. What of
families with disabled children, or in the case of multiple births, where the care
requirements of children are higher? What if one parent is already at home on carers’
leave, looking after another family member in need of care? What if a grandparent
instead of a parent is the primary carer? Parental leave should be applied fairly and
policy should take into account different family forms and circumstances.
Parents and children
Child outcomes, including the child’s need for a positive and secure bond with
parents, especially the mother, and parental and family outcomes should form an
equal basis for the establishment of any new provisions for parental leave. The
optimal length of parental leave from a family’s perspective is subject to many
factors, including but not limited to child outcomes, income requirements, job
opportunities, suitability and inclination to act as primary caregiver, and the existence
of other family members who require care. (From the perspective of governments,
child and family outcomes should be a much more important factor than to date.)
Parental care includes two main types of activity, one of which can be replaced by
another caregiver: the aspect of care which should be termed care work. Of course,
non-parental caregivers should not be empowered or expected to replace the other part
of parental care, the non-work aspects of care, including the affective relationship and
the bond between child and parent, or other responsibilities of parents, such as the
choice of education, or the culture, religion or language the child will be raised in.
Across Europe, FEFAF member organisations report that parents on the ground
require flexible supports to enable them to meet the needs of their children and of
their families. Children are not simply individuals requiring care but developing
human beings with different needs and preferences; child outcomes vary by quality
and consistency of care, and access to parents. Parents are more than workers who
want to outsource the care of their children; generally parents want what is in the best
interests of their children: there can be no quality time with children without a certain
minimum quantity of time.
For children in non-maternal care, child outcomes are closely associated to the quality
of care that children receive. Due to the high staff-child ratios required to ensure
quality non-maternal care for the under-ones, this is not cost-effective. Even the
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OECD does not suggest maternity leave should be shorter than six months2. The
reality is that children require full-time care or supervision and education for the time
that they are born until they leave secondary school. The care and informal education
parents provide is extremely important for children’s ultimate outcomes. Indeed
parental, especially maternal, factors are most important in children’s ultimate
educational and academic outcomes.3 Research from a major, long-term cohort study
in the United States confirms that parental factors are more important than other care
and education factors.4
Role, responsibilities and rights of parents
Parents also have a role, with associated rights and responsibilities, under
international human rights machinery (to which EU Member States are signatories
and to which EU Candidate States must accede prior to their successful application to
become EU Member States) and as citizens under their respective national
constitutions, and these should not be undermined under any proposal to implement
paternity leave.
From the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women:
Article 4.2
Adoption by States Parties of special measures, including those measures
contained in the present Convention, aimed at protecting maternity shall not be
considered discriminatory.5
From the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
Article 18
1. States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the
principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing
and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians,
have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the
child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.
2. For the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the
present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to
parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing
responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and
services for the care of children.6
Many national constitutions contain similar references to acting in the best interests of
children. For example, Article 22 bis (seconde modification) of the Belgian
2
July 2008 OECD Policy Brief Babies and Bosses: Balancing Work and Family Life,
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/12/2/34566853.pdf, p6.
3
See e.g. Desforges with Abouchaar, 2003. The Impact of Parental Involvement, Parental Support and
Family Education on Pupil Achievement and Adjustment: a Literature Review, available from
www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/18617/Desforges.pdf.
4
See e.g. The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development summary brochure available
from www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/upload/seccyd_06.pdf.
5
www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm.
6
www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.
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Constitution includes such a reference: “Dans toute décision qui le concerne, l'intérêt
de l'enfant est pris en considération de manière primordiale.”
From the Irish Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann:
Article 42
1. The State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child
is the Family and guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of
parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral,
intellectual, physical and social education of their children.
Clearly, the human rights agreements signed by all EU governments and EU Member
State constitutions demonstrate that the primary responsibility for acting in the best
interests of children in the area of care and education lies with parents. The state has
an important supporting role, especially with regard to the provision of educational
and care facilities as required, the training of teachers and caregivers, and the
inspection of educational services, but should not act effectively in loco parentis by
imposing choices regarding the care and education of children.
Families and poverty
In every country it is possible to hire a paid worker to undertake family care and
household work. Indeed, if one at-home dad changes houses with his neighbour, they
can both earn an income and pay tax, even though they are doing the exact same work
they would do at home without the possibility of pay. In contrast with family
businesses, where it is perfectly possible to pay family members for the work that they
do, care work is not recognised as work. Care work entails no rights, no income, no
insurance, no social welfare provision and no possibility of pension only when it is
carried out by a member of the family: in other words, it is not the work that you do,
but who you are, that decides whether or not you can be paid for doing care work. It
is, correctly, no longer possible in Europe to pay a woman less for doing the same
work as a man; it is still, however, possible to say that you cannot be paid for your
work because you are the mother or father of the child for whom you care.
Families, especially single-parent families, with children or other caring
responsibilities are increasingly associated with poverty in developed countries.
FEFAF argues that this is a likely outcome of any individualised system where no
account is taken of the actual and opportunity costs of care. Actual costs are fairly
straightforward, and include such items as food, shelter and clothing. The most
significant opportunity cost to parents is that they cannot be in employment while they
are involved in care work for the benefit of their children. This combination of actual
and opportunity costs results in a number of negative outcomes for the person or
persons who care for family members. Not only do caregivers lose the income that
would otherwise be associated with their work, they cannot make contributions to the
social welfare system or to a pension and they have no insurance cover if they have an
accident or a disability7.
7
NB In Italy, there is a national insurance policy for homemakers, available from
www.inail.it/Portale/appmanager/portale/desktop?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PAGE_CASALINGHE
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Alternative proposal for parental leave: Child Care and Education Credits8
Currently, all leaves are provided for via the social welfare system or an agency of the
government and tied to employment, and so act as both carrot (job security and
income) and stick (time-limited); yet they do not take account of child outcomes or
the parental responsibility to make decisions about childcare.
If childcare supports and income for care work are linked to the child, in the form of
hourly indirect payments, in a system of Child Care and Education Credits, instead of
the employment and social welfare record of the parents, parents will be better able to
fulfil their decision-making role and share the work of caring for their child in a
flexible and child-centred manner.
Additionally, the work will become visible: all child care, and not just institutional or
non-family childcare, will be included in relevant statistics; family caregivers will not
be included among the ‘inactive’ statistics; and a flat rate of tax and social welfare and
pension contributions could be imposed on this income, to be applied as and when the
income is drawn down. If the Child Care and Education Credits are tied to the social
insurance number or citizen identifier of the child, it will make research on the
outcomes of child care and education much more straightforward and reliable; it
would also improve child safety if the caregivers can only encash credits by using
their own social insurance number or citizen identifier, and monitor the gender gap in
care work. Policies on family supports are often developed at national level in the
absence of research on outcomes, and implementation may or may not be effectively
monitored. The proposal of Child Care and Education Credits facilitates all parents
equally and would allow them to make decisions on care in the best interests of their
children regardless of any family’s particular circumstances.
Furthermore, a system Child Care and Education Credits would ensure that women’s
and men’s Curricula Vitae would not have blank sections representing periods of
family care work; and that the skills and competencies developed during such periods
could be accredited9 in a more straightforward manner and accepted by employers.
Such an approach would decrease the gender gap in pay and pensions, and improve
the recognition and status of care work, which would in turn lead to an improved
willingness and ability of men to take up caring responsibilities. It would also protect
migrant care workers, and provide an income, social welfare, and pension floor,
below which all who are involved in care work cannot fall.
There would have to be a central fund out of which Child Care and Education Credits
could be paid. This could be introduced as a ring-fenced, small solidarity levy on all
income earned, on the basis that each generation, regardless of the particular current
circumstances of individuals, relies on the generation before them to invest in their
care and education; and in turn owes the same to the generation following.
For more information on this proposal, or to seek participation in further consultation
on this topic, please contact FEFAF.
8
Child Care and Education Credits were develeped by FEFAF Irish member Cúram; for more
information, contact withcare@eircom.net.
9
See ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/consult/learning_en.html for relevant background documents
from e.g. CEDEFOP re validation of non-formal and informal learning and the Commission’s
consultation process and participation.
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