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Babies and Bosses

Wikis > Babies and Bosses
Babies and Bosses, Reconciling Work and Family Life is a publication of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS)). It takes into consideration that gender roles are no longer as clear-cut than they used to be. Specifically, the publication offers alternatives to the traditional male-breadwinner model, which involved a clear allocation of responsibilities and time within households: men spent their time at work earning family income, while women spent their time at home caring for the children.

Changing Patterns of Time Allocation

With greater investment in education, female aspirations and female labour market behaviour has changed so that in the majority of OECD countries, “dual-earnership” in couple-families has become the norm. The rise in “dual earnership” and sole-parent households means that finding an optimal balance between work and family commitments has become an issue for almost all parents.
If parents have to choose between earning money and looking after their children, the result is often that there will be too few babies and too little employment. Policymakers cannot ignore this as an issue – in almost every OECD country the government is concerned about either fertility rates, or gender equity, or female employment rates, or child poverty and child development.

Reconciling Work and Family Life

Governments are spending more money to help families reconcile work and family life than before. But policies are often not sufficient, especially if there are ‘gaps’ in support. Such gaps happen when parental leave ends before childcare support is available, for example; or when children go to school but only during part of the day; or when parents go back to work but find that their hours are so inflexible that they cannot cope when children are sick, for example. Babies and Bosses shows how policies need to fit together in order to avoid the wast of public resources.

See also

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
  • OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS))
  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Development Centre
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