illustration for the drivers of inequality

Driver Category 4.3

Unequal access to good quality, affordable childcare, elderly care and other family support services

This driver covers access to childcare (and care of the elderly or children or adults with disabilities) as important factors affecting women’s opportunities for employment compared to men’s.

It also covers differences related to accessing personal services – such as domestic labour – that enables the wealthy to free up time to engage in work and productive and valued activities.

Guiding Questions

General

  • What working time and leave policies are in place to enable workers to attend to care needs? Are there formal leave-to-care policies? Are workers entitled to maternity and paternity leave, parental leave and any form of compassionate and emergency leave? Are there limits on working hours and policies to ensure flexible working, part-time working, and job-sharing can be arranged? What efforts are made by trade unions in your country to integrate concerns about caring into negotiations and collective bargaining agreements with management?

Childcare

  • Does the government have a national policy and strategy regarding access to affordable, quality childcare?
  • Does a system exist to provide accreditation to childcare providers, kindergartens, pre-schools etc. and to monitor standards?
  • Is the government’s vision to provide significant public childcare options or is childcare viewed as a private matter?
  • Is good quality, affordable childcare for all viewed as desirable, and as an effective inequality-reduction strategy, or an area where state intervention is unnecessary?
  • What analysis exists about the impact of caring for young children on women’s labour force participation and earnings?
  • Is there information available regarding the availability of childcare options for working parents?
  • Are childcare options affordable, convenient and of sufficient quality?
  • How do the costs of childcare in your country compare to other similar countries?
  • Does the government offer any kind of financial support (e.g. voucher systems, or fully subsidised care for poor families, or through tax exemptions) to help families to access childcare facilities?
  • Is financial support sufficient to enable children from poor families to access high quality childcare options?
  • Or is there evidence that poor families are forced to select low quality childcare options?
  • Does the public works programme provide childcare options for mothers of young children who need to access public works programmes?

Elderly care

  • Is there information available on the extent of family caregiving for the elderly (the number of carers and the hours of unpaid care provided by families) and the characteristics of carers (the division of informal care between men and women, the socioeconomic status of carers)?
  • What government policies are in place in relation to elderly care?
  • What types of care services and public support services are available for vulnerable elderly people and how do families access the support they need?
  • What is known about the impact of caring for the elderly on labour force participation and earnings?
  • What evidence exists on how men and women are impacted differently, in terms of leaving work, or reducing working hours, in order to care for the elderly?
  • Is there evidence of lower wages for carers as they select lower-paid jobs or less working hours to accommodate caring responsibilities?
  • What is the balance between informal care provided by unpaid family members, and formal care alternatives – as provided by public systems and/or the private sector?
  • What role does the government play in the public provisioning of home-based care for the elderly?

Indicators

Potential indicators to monitor the drivers of inequalities in this main driver category

  • Amount of public budget spent on provision of childcare services; amount spent on childcare subsidies
  • % of parental earnings spent on childcare (disaggregated by relevant characteristics)
  • Number of children enrolled in public pre-schools/kindergartens vs enrolled in private facilities (national and per region)
  • Amount of budget spent providing care services to support home and community care of the elderly (total and per region); amount spent on allowances for people caring for family members (total and per household)
  • Amount of budget spent supporting elderly people in residential care (total budget, budget per person)
  • % of household earnings spent on elderly care (disaggregated by relevant characteristics)

Candidate Policies

To see related Candidate Policies in this main driver category please click here.