Reconciling Work with Family: Considerations of Time

1
Reconciling Work with Family Considerations of
Time

• Rhoda Reddock
• The University of the West Indies,
• St. Augustine Campus,
• Trinidad and Tobago

2
Organisation of the Presentation

• Introduction The Current Context of Social Life
  in the Caribbean
• Economic Neo-Liberalism, Gender and Social Life
  in the Caribbean
• Gangs, Guns and Criminal Violence Implications
  for the Care Work
• Women and the Care Economy Reconciling Work with
  Family
• Conclusions and Recommendations

3
The Current Context of Social Life in the
Caribbean
4
Where are We Today Uncertain futures
Linden Lewis

• In 2003, Caribbean Sociologist and Gender Studies
  Scholar Linden Lewis noted the following
• The Caribbean is at a critical juncture of its
  history and development. The economic and social
  challenges facing the region are daunting to say
  the least. The region faces a future without any
  guarantees.

5
Impact of Neo-Liberalism

• Today the Caribbean is facing a serious economic
  crisis, the culmination of the impact of
  neo-liberal economic policies over the last two
  decades as well as the impact of the current
  economic crisis in the Global North.
• It has come after a close to 20-year period where
  the forces of free trade and the free market
  described by some as - The Washington
  Consensus, were paramount.

6
Impact of Neo-Liberalism Contd

• These policies facilitated the dismantling and
  removal of the many of the social and economic
  systems established in the Anglophone Caribbean
  in the aftermath of the labour disturbances of
  the 1930s and World War II (although not to the
  same extent in all countries). In other words a
  weakening of the social sector.
• They also opened up local and regional markets by
  insisting on the removal of subsidies on local
  agriculture.
•  

7
Impact of Neo-Liberalism

• With the decline in agriculture and manufacturing
  local economic opportunities for the majority of
  poor women and men have also significantly
  declined resulting in increased poverty and
  regional or international migration.
• Yet women, especially middle-class women made
  good use of educational opportunities resulting
  in women having higher educational levels than
  men at a time of increasing male school dropouts
  and male youth criminality which is a major
  concern in the region.

8
Concerns with Masculinity

• The visibly improved performance of young women
  in the education system where females comprise
  60-70 of the university population has raised
  questions about continued state support for
  womens programmes
• Today there is increased concern from the State
  in high levels of youth criminality including
  criminal violence, school violence and poor
  educational performance.
• .

9
Youth Masculinities and Care Work

• The gains for women are often juxtaposed against
  the losses for men
• It can be argued that this is the negative
  result of the lack of support for parents and
  caring work.
• Today child care and elderly care continue to the
  primarily the responsibility of women with
  limited support.

10
Guns, Gangs and Youth Violence

•  The issue of youth criminality brings together
  many of the social, economic and gender questions
  currently facing our region
• The Caribbeans location within the regional and
  global economy
• The differential gendered impact of
  socio-economic policy and
• The collapse of the social sector in many
  although thankfully not all of our countries over
  the years of economic neo-liberalism

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Guns, Gangs and Youth Violence Contd

• The increased burden of care placed on families,
  and on mothers in particular with little state or
  partner support
• The normalisation of the gun as the weapon of
  choice through the globalisation of the US
  entertainment industry
• The emergence of the drug economy as a
  replacement of the now disappearing productive
  industries
• The gendered constructions of masculinities and
  the significance of violence within it

12
Guns, Gangs and Youth Violence Contd

• The sexual division of labour and the
  responsibilities of women and men within it
• The need for attention to the quality of our
  education systems and not only the quantity
• The need to support parents in the normal yet
  challenging role of parenting in the contemporary
  world.
•  

13
Women and the Care Economy in the Caribbean

• Reconciling Work with Family

14
Caribbean Family and Household

• Caribbean sociologists and demographers have
  stressed the concept of the household as not
  coterminous with the concept of family.
• Caribbean family forms defied traditional western
  norms of family and were often considered
  deviant. Social welfare systems are based on the
  traditional conjugal family and the notion of the
  male breadwinner despite the significant
  deviation from this norm.
• The idea of family in the Caribbean goes far
  beyond the household to include all known
  relatives, close friends of ones parents and
  their children.

15
Addressing Unwaged Work in the Caribbean

• Trinidad and Tobago was the first country in the
  region to pass legislation on Measuring unwaged
  work.
• The Counting Remunerated Work Bill was introduced
  in February 1995 and passed in 1996.
• It was piloted in the Parliament as a Private
  Members Bill by a woman independent senator
  Diana Mahabir-Wyatt

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Unremunerated Work Act 1996

• It requires the CSO and other public bodies
• to produce and maintain statistics relative to
  the counting of unremunerated work and to provide
  a mechanism for quantifying and recording the
  monetary value of such work
• It examines agricultural work, care-giving of
  the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and very
  young work carried out in and around households,
  unpaid social safety net work carried out by
  both women and men in NGOs in satellite accounts

17
Clotil Walcott and NUDE

• This cause had been championed for years by
  Clotil Walcott, grassroots womens and labour
  activist and founder of the National Union of
  Domestic Employees (NUDE) which in 1980 was
  affiliated to the International Wages for
  Housework Campaign
• Her daughter Ida Le Blanc would continue her work
  on Domestic workers rights.

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Clotil Walcott 1925-2007
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2000 Census Unremunerated Housework and Other
Activities

• Females 15 performed 1,204,461 hours work in the
  week preceding the census
• Males 15 performed 612,878 hours
• Most time was spent in Cleaning the house 21
  - Males and 24 females, followed by Washing
  Laundry
• A sexual division of labour existed. Men did most
  of the Gardening and rearing of animals and Home
  Repairs and Maintenance
• Males also participated more in sports and
  leisure activities ( not included in the total
  above)
• Females more in community and volunteer work
  NITRA)

20
Social Reproduction in Jamaica 1999 (HDR 2000)

• This Study found that
• Much of womens work does not appear in national
  statistics
• Unpaid unrecognised activities were more
  numerous in low-income households
• Non-monetary contributions unvalued economically
  and in relation to human value
• Inability to measure this contribution prevents
  an accurate assessment of output

21
Time Use Study Red Thread Guyana - 2004

• This Study was carried out by a Womens
  organisation affiliated to the International
  Women Count Network, dissatisfied with the slow
  pace of government action found that
• the typical working day for women ranged from
  14-18 hours, with little help from anyone, often
  with minimal and unreliable technology, limited
  access to amenities and with very little leisure
  or free time for themselves

22
Decent Work for Domestic Workers

• In June 2011 the ILO Convention on Decent Work
  for Domestic Workers was approved in Geneva
• This was the culmination of many years of
  struggle by domestic worker organisations.
• Central to this struggle was Ida Le Blanc
  daughter of the late Clotil Walcott who had
  fought for the recognition of unwaged work in
  Trinidad and Tobago

23
Ida Le Blanc
24
Trinidad and Tobago Case

• The rest of this presentation draws heavily on
  the study
• Reconciling Work and Family Issues and Policies
  in Trinidad and Tobago, by Rhoda Reddock and
  Yvonne Bobb-Smith, ILO Conditions of Work and
  Employment Series, No. 18, 2008.

25
Case Study - Trinidad and Tobago

• Over the past few decades, the increasing
  industrialisation and diversification of the
  economy and the impact of the womens movement
  have resulted in complex changes in society and
  economy.
• Families and households have had to respond to
  the quick pace of technological change, workplace
  demands, migration of family members, increasing
  income inequalities, inflation and the resulting
  social dislocation,

26
Trends in Family Organisation

• Today much of the blame for the increase in youth
  criminality and violence is placed on parents.
• There has even been a call for parents to be held
  legally responsible for the behaviour of their
  children.
• Womens involvement in work outside the home is
  also blamed for this situation.

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Trends in Family and Household Organisation TT

• Women as household heads
• households below the poverty line tend to be
  larger and headed by females who are often single
  mothers with dependent children, or contain at
  least one elderly person living alone or in an
  extended family setting sometimes having
  responsibility for the entire household.
• Elderly in Households
• 22 of all households had at least one older
  person (65 years and older). Of these, 42 were
  extended family households while 21 comprised
  persons living alone.

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WORK AND CHANGING FAMILY TRADITIONS

• Parents utilize the services of paid help for
  preschoolers, such as daily or live-in domestic
  help.
• They place children in the care of neighbours or
  relatives.
• They give responsibilities to older siblings
• They use private or public child-care services.
• They hire help for after school care.
• They choose jobs, which have flexible hours to
  manipulate their work time around hours for
  childcare.
• They establish their own businesses.

29
Trends in Family and Household Organisation

• Although families are small, they still depend on
  extended family support e.g. grandmothers, other
  relatives and friends
• Where these are not available or in a crisis -
  babysitters, child care centres etc. are used.
• In many instances grandparents esp. grandmothers
  become principal caregivers when parents migrate
  or are no longer available to their children
  usually due to drug addiction, alcoholism, mental
  health problems, homicides, imprisonment or
  chronic ill health e.g. HIV and AIDS.

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Male Single Parents

• Single fathers were a minority and more likely
  than married fathers to be living in an extended
  or complex household and therefore to have more
  adult support available. She observed
•  
• A multi-family single parent male headed
  household means that children have potentially
  more access to adults than children living with
  just their fathers. The problems of solo
  parenting differs for men and women in the
  Trinidad and Tobago context. Solo fathers
  receive more volunteer help from friends and kin,
  probably because men are assumed to be less
  capable of childrearing than women
• (Bronte Tinkew,199831).

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Family and the Sexual Division of Labour

• Women continue to have major responsibilities for
  housework and child care
• Some men have become more sensitized and share
  responsibilities mainly in transporting children
  to and from school, supervising homework and
  grooming children
• Women reported difficulties in assigning
  housework to family members including children.

32
Work-Family Conflict

• Difficulty in continuing breastfeeding after
  returning to work

I returned to work when my son was 3½ months
old. I visit his daycare every working day to
breastfeed him and to express milk. How do I do
it? My day goes like this I breastfeed him at
about 700 am before we leave home. I drop my
(two) older children to school and then leave my
baby in St James. I begin my lunch hour at 1100
am and drive for 20 minutes from downtown, Port
of Spain (capital) to St James (suburbs). When I
arrive there, he is usually hungry and looking
out for me, so I breastfeed him immediately I
eat the lunch I have brought with me and drive
back to work, getting there by 1230 pm (Helen
Ross, t.i.b.s NEWS April//June 2004 1-2).
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Work-Family Conflict

• There is no synchronization of work hours and
  school hours. Schools can end at any one of these
  times - 12.15, 1.30, 2.00, 2.30, 3.00 or 5.15
  p.m. (with extra lessons).
• Women, increasingly a part of the labour force,
  have used innovative coping strategies to reduce
  the conflict that work-family responsibilities
  produce and to manage their time
• Men to a lesser extent are visible in this
  respect but usually in specific areas e.g.
  providing transportation.

34
CASE STUDY 2 Fathers Contribution Transport
and Security

• Mr. J, Taxi-driver, does not live with his 3
  children, he however shuttles them to school and
  back home. One child attends school in Port of
  Spain and two others in Maraval. Outcome
  security for children, but severe loss of
  earnings during peak hours.

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Work-Family Conflict

• The unpredictability of this countrys
  infrastructure especially transportation and
  utilities e.g. water and electricity - heighten
  work-family conflict
• The citizens fear of criminal violence has
  placed more stress on working parents who seek to
  ensure their childrens safety
• Middle and upper-income women/parents use their
  financial resources for babysitters, special
  transport arrangements etc. low-income women are
  unable to access similar support structures

36
Case Study 3 Complex Transport Arrangements

• Mrs C. leaves South Trinidad for her job in Port
  of Spain at 515 am arriving at work at 600 am.
  
• Her seven year old son travels to school a few
  miles away in a carpool. When his father is not
  at work, he takes him to school.
• She leaves work between 400 and 500 pm and
  arrives home between 630 and 800 pm in the
  evening.
• She notes that quality time with her son on a
  daily basis is reduced to merely an hour or less,
  as she sees him go to bed, and perhaps reads to
  him.

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Complex Arrangements

• Mrs. K has developed a network of resources...
  Her day begins at 500. Because of the flexible
  time in her new job, which she chose because it
  helps with her plan, she can fully dress and
  groom her daughters for school, and give them
  packed lunch kits before a female taxi driver
  transports them to the babysitter. They remain
  there approximately an hour, before the driver
  takes them to school. They have the reverse trip
  in the afternoon, when they remain at the
  babysitters until she is on her way home from
  work, between 1600 to 1800, depending on the
  structure of her day

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Implications for work-family reconciliation
39
Areas of Challenge

• Lack of synchronization of work and school hours
• Day Care centres 3 mths 3 years
• Breast feeding support in workplaces
• School transportation
• Gender-sensitive parenting programmes
• Child support and fatherhood

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Compounding issues

• Illness/HIV/AIDS
• Sexual Division of Labour
• Migration

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Working time

• Full-time work
• Part-time work
• Work hours and school hours
• Flexible schedules

42
Existing Family Support Benefits

• Widows and Orphans fund
• NIS
• Employee assistance programmes
• Homework centres and after school Care
• Vacation Camps
• Disability Assistance Grants
• School Nutrition programmes
• Early Childhood Education Centre - State
• School transportation

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Recommendations - Data

• Need for Improved data collection and analysis.
  The Central Statistical Office and various other
  sources of Institutional Data need to be
  strengthened to improve the quality and
  timeliness of data for planning and analysis.
• Greater use of gender indicators and gender
  disaggregated data.

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Recommendations The State

• Strengthen Labour Ministries to improve
  monitoring systems of work conditions in low
  income occupations
• Rationalize school opening and closing hours
• Increase the centralization of essential services
• Consider tax incentives to businesses that
  implement practices to reduce work-family
  conflict
• Pass legislation to mandate child care centres in
  all housing estates, office complexes and
  industrial estates.

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Recommendations The Private Sector

• Flexi-time arrangements to be made standard
• Co- funded solutions e.g. Homework centres,
  crèches, in all new office complexes, housing
  schemes and industrial estates
• DOCUMENT/PUBLICIZE BEST PRACTICES
• The AFETT survey of female friendly workplaces
  and Selection of the Top5 a good example
• Develop a workplace culture to encourage
  contributions to work-family compatibility
  policies

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Selected Recommendations Trade Unions

• Introduce measures into collective bargaining
  aimed to address work-family conflict
• Facilitate gender sensitivity training for all
  trade union personnel- male and female including
  shared domestic responsibility
• Develop a public education campaign to introduce
  this issue and its impact, from parenting to
  worker commitment

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Conclusions

• Implementing these policies in the short run may
  be costly but much less so than the other impacts
  
• Criminality and violence
• High rates of worker absenteeism
• Low productivity
• Poorly adjusted and unhealthy citizens