One of the factors that deters productivity, higher turnover & full and equal participation of employees at work is the challenge of accessing decent and affordable childcare. Today, in many parts of the world, working parents face several challenges in getting good quality childcare.
This translates into the unavailability
or unaffordability of care affects the choices that parents make regarding the type of work that they do, whether they stay at home, or how they combine work with care.
In most cases, formal childcare is often outside the reach of low and middle-income employees. For those who can afford it, available options are often limited and poorly aligned with full-time working hours. Access to care is particularly lacking for children younger than three. Reliable, affordable, and good-quality childcare is essential for making
progress.
Companies that offer childcare benefits for their employees stand to benefit from improved recruitment, retention, and productivity of workers, according to a report by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group.
The report titled Tackling Childcare: The Business Case for Employer-Supported Childcare discusses how companies can analyze their workforce to identify the type of childcare support they can offer their employees that best suits their needs.
Among the companies profiled in the report include Safaricom which has been lauded for a suite of policies and practices that help support both male and female employees with children, including on-site crèches for younger children.
Steve Chege, Director of Corporate Affairs, Safaricom said: “We continue to create the most mother-friendly working conditions we can to reduce the disruption and costs associated with replacing women leaving the workforce to raise families. Aside from supporting new mothers, we are also actively identifying female employees with leadership potential and deliberately growing them at every level of the company.”
Beyond the crèche provision, Safaricom offers additional benefits including maternity leave beyond statutory provision, reduced working hours options for mothers, breastfeeding rooms, an on-site doctor, and medical insurance that includes children.
The research showed that employers that offered childcare found that it led to a substantial reduction in employee turnover and improved the quality of applicants and the speed at which vacancies can be filled.
It also showed increased productivity through reduced absences, enhanced motivation and commitment and improved gender diversity including advancement of women into leadership positions.
There is a market potential to free up women’s time spent in unpaid care work and support their access to formal jobs. Addressing childcare needs, therefore, is critical in enabling women’s economic development activities.
“When companies support childcare, they can hire and retain talent and boost profits and productivity. Moreover, childcare provision can enable more women and men to participate in paid labor. In addition, children who have access to early childhood education and care are more likely to perform well in school and be healthier, as well as are more productive as adults. Hence, childcare results in a win-win situation for employees and their children, employers, and economies,” said Manuel Moses, IFC Country Manager, East Africa.
Not Just a Women’s Issue
Childcare is not a women’s issue alone. All working parents, women and men,
usually need childcare options to retain or get new jobs, with benefits accruing to communities, businesses, and economies.
Because women are more likely than men to bear childcare responsibilities, lack of childcare is a major barrier to women’s
full and equal participation in paid work.
According to the International Labour Organization, globally, women’s labor
force participation rate is just over 49 percent, nearly 27 percentage points lower than the rate for men.
A McKinsey Global Institute study estimated that closing gender gaps in economic participation would increase global gross domestic product (GDP) by 26 percent by 2025, adding $12 trillion.
Provide childcare support to both mothers and fathers should be a key focus on increasing the gender balance of users of childcare benefits.
Encouraging and enabling fathers to use policies as actively as mothers is particularly likely to yield returns, including through the business benefits of diversity.
