"Men equal, men different"
Analysis of public environment
Identifying
Economic, institutional, social barriers
to active fatherhood and
Reconciliation of work and private life
in France
CNIDFF
January 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Family Policy in France
Social barriers
Economical barriers
Institutional barriers
Bibliography
Gender inequality in care giving within families remains widespread. Even among dual-earning couples, men spend far less time than their partners in both housework and child care-giving. Fathers’ involvement in basic childcare tasks - e.g., feeding, bathing, dressing children - is especially limited. Fathers’ lagging engagement at home can weaken the quality and the quantity of their partners’ labour market attachment. Indeed, men’s hours of work generally increase after becoming fathers. Men’s limited ties to their children in some intact families also raise the probability of limited relationships between fathers and children, which may worsen significantly in the event of family dissolution.
FAMILY POLICY IN FRANCE
Helping parents better to reconcile family and working life in France
Reconciling family and working life has become a real issue in recent years, because of the growing numbers of women working and the new developments in the labour market. The birth, education and upbringing of a child obviously entail changes in family finances and organization.The issue of reconciliation of work and family life is at the top of the collective bargaining and policy agenda. Thus, certain agreements, legislation, policy programme and research are dealing with issues such as working time flexibility related to better work-life balance, childcare, and leave provisions.
Here, the aim of family policy is to help parents successfully educate and bring up their children while pursuing their careers. The substantial sums channelled into welfare benefits for infants are intended either to help with childminding costs or to enable parents to look after their children themselves.
The law of 4 March 2002 introduced the general concept of sharing of parental responsibilities and rights, independent of the status of the parents. The law also lay down that in case of the parents' separation it is possible to arrange for shared residence for the child at each of its parents.
In addition paternity leave was introduced in 2002 (law n°2001-1246 of 21/12/01). This eleven-day leave is added to the three-day leave, which was previously permitted by the Code of work. The first year which following this law: 59% of the fathers benefited from the paternity leave of those insured by the social security systems of the employed persons, of the agricultural professions or of the self-employed workers.
Paternity leave was introduced as an extension or add-on to current family support, signalling that at this time fathers were needed at home with their infant and partner rather than in the workplace. It provides an opportunity for fathers to be involved in many aspects of family life: for example, getting to know their infant, becoming sensitive to the rhythm of infant life, supporting mother in the immediate aftermath of the arrival of the child, settling older children, cooking and cleaning while the mother establishes breast-feeding or helping with bottle-feeding. In addition, paternity leave supports men’s own health and safety needs linked to the sleep disruption experienced by those with a newborn in the home. Through paternity leave, therefore, mothers can, in principle, gain potential support from fathers in the period after birth while not loosing any maternity entitlement, albeit with a reduction in income as reimbursement rates are not income related. Similarly infants can gain by receiving a boost of joint parental time.
To make it possible for the parents to better reconcile family life and professional life, a new benefit was created at first January 2004. This involves benefits that are composed of basics allocations that can be used to enable the parents to choose "crèche" (day care centre) for their children or leave or reduce their employment until the child is three years old.
The state recommends the development of a direct intervention of the companies with regard to enable families to reconcile work and family. Tax credit is one of the instruments set up by the French government this involves that companies can have taxes reduction for the amounts spent on for example: the creation of "crèches" internally or the offer of part-time work
Among the other development areas set up by the government is allocation of 200 million Euros to make it possible to create 20,000 additional places in "crèches", development of child care more adapted to the situation of parents who have to know atypical working hours or need temporary care for their children.
The Parental Education and Upbringing Allowance(allocation parentale d’éducation), costing EUR 2.74 billion, is paid without means testing when a parent who has been working for at least two years decides to give up work to bring up his or her children, provided that one of the children is aged under three.
EUR 1.4 billion is channelled into the Family Allowance for the Employment of a Registered Childminder(aide à la famille pour l’emploi d’une assistante maternelle agréée) which can be claimed by parents whose children aged less than six are looked after at the childminder's home.
EUR 0.24 billion is channelled into the Children’s Home Care Allowance(allocation de garde d’enfant à domicile) which covers part of the employer's social security contributions which have to be paid by parents who employ a childminder in their own home.
The National Family Allowances Fund also spent EUR 0.81 billion on the various forms of day care facilities in 1999.
Lastly, the means-tested Young Child Allowance(allocation pour jeune enfant), amounting to EUR 151.08 per month, costs France a total of EUR 2.59 billion per annum. There are other specific types of assistance, such as the means-tested New School-Year Allowance (allocation de rentrée scolaire), paid once a year to compensate for the expenses incurred at the start of a new school year, and the Family Supplement(complément familial) which goes to large families whose children are aged three or over; the total cost of this supplement was EUR 1.46 billion in 1999.
Childminding for very young children often continues to be a problem, however, as the number of facilities available is still inadequate. There are nursery places for only 9.9% of the 2.2 million children aged under three and close on a quarter, i.e. 500,000, are looked after by, for instance, neighbours or the family (in the broad sense). Less than 20% of children, both (or one) of whose parents work, have nursery places.
To counter this situation, a plan to promote the creation of places for very young children in nurseries has just been launched. A package of EUR 0.23 billion of investment aid will mean that places can be provided for a further 400,000 children in crèches, nurseries and other innovative childminding facilities. In addition to the plan, a Decree on the improvement of nursery facilities for young children has been published. This Decree stresses the importance of the role of parents, clarifies the approval procedures, encourages longer opening hours and improves accommodation and supervisory capacities.
The Government has also decided to reform the Family Allowance for the Employment of a Registered Childminder (AFEAMA - aide à la famille pour l’emploi d’une assistante maternelle agréée) which will help families on low incomes, whose breadwinners are most likely to hold vulnerable and part-time jobs, to make use of individual childminding methods which are by their nature more flexible. The reform takes the form of a modulated increase in this allowance for families on low or average incomes (i.e. new government expenditure of EUR 76.22 million in 2001). 100,000 to 120,000 of the 490,000 families currently receiving it should therefore get more money. In the long term, the number of families claiming this allowance is expected to rise by 30 to 40,000.
The Conference on the Family of 15 June 2000 set up an entitlement to Parental Presence Leave(congé de présence parentale), together with an allowance, in cases where children are gravely ill and need a parent to care for and stay with them. The amount of the allowance the parent receives will be EUR 457.35 per month (not working at all), EUR 228.67 (80% of his/her previous hours) and EUR 304.90 (50%). The leave and allowance will be for an initial period of three months which can be renewed. Thereafter, such parents will become entitled to the already existing Special Education Allowance(allocation d’éducation spécialisée).
In December 2000, France’s Economic and Social Council (CES) proposed a number of measures, such as improving the image of women, undertaking positive action and reviewing parental leave and childcare provisions in order to increase the presence of women in decision-making positions. Also, a report, in September 1999, entitled “More mixing in the labour market for greater equality between men and women” submitted by the French MP Catherine Génisson, commissioned by the Prime Minister, proposed 30 legal provisions including specific measures to promote reconciliation of work and family life.
The National Charter for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and the Equality of treatment between Women and Men given to the Prime Minister 8 March 2004 federates about a hundred of the main organized forces in society, public and private, to gender mainstream their actions and policies. This means integrating the gender equality objective into all Community policies. One year after the assessment is positive: 15% of the objectives were reached for the year 2004 and 37% are in process. The involvement of all the organizations should continue.
The Political Label for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men were launched end 2004 by the government. The first label was awarded 10 March 2005 to the company PSA Peugeot Citroën. Since then 17 companies were awarded for their actions.
Family-friendly arrangements in firms are defined as practices facilitating the reconciliation of work and family life, which firms introduce to complement statutory requirements. Family-friendly arrangements can include: leave from work for family reasons; changes to work arrangements for family reasons; and practical help with child-care and eldercare. Leave from work for family reasons includes provisions for extra-statutory maternity, paternity and parental leave, career breaks, leave to care for elderly relatives, and emergency leave to deal with a sick child or problems with child-care. Changes in work arrangements for family reasons include reductions in working hours (for example, from full-time to part-time working), term-time only working contracts, working at home for family reasons, and appropriate flexi-time arrangements. All these types of arrangements can be of considerable assistance in easing the work/family reconciliation. Flexibility in working hours is of vital importance to deal with the emergencies of everyday family life.
The reduction in working hours (35h/week):
Regarding time, in France, the most important recent fact that led to changes, is the first “Aubry law” on “guidelines and incentives relating to the reduction of working time”, issued on 13 June 1998. This legislation, in force until the end of 1999, was designed to encourage bargaining on reduced working time before the adoption of definitive legislation on the 35-hour week for companies with more than 20 employees (the second “Aubry law” passed on 15 December 1999). Negotiations on this theme generally took place at sector level in 1999, and bargaining then continued at company level in 2000.
One of the main findings is that when fathers have experiences a reduction in their working hours, they look after their children more, especially when their partners work full-time and have had no reduction in their own working hours. 47 % of employees asked in a study of 2002 (1618 employees asked) have the feeling they spend more time with their children since the reduction in working hours.
Social barriers
State and social reluctance to practice shared parenting is tied up with an entrenched, complicated, interdependent web of socio-economic activities based on traditional and outmoded gender roles.
The difference of parents' expectations for their girls and boys; the choice of education, training and activities have an impact on men and women professional situation later on the labour market.
The domestically and family work continue to be taken in charged by women no matter if they are working or not. There has been a new model of family with the entrance of women on the labour market: Family with both partners working. It didn't have a consequence of parity for domestically and parental activities. There still exists a view that men's nurturing and relational abilities are inferior to those of women. Fathers’ involvement in housework remains low, contributing to women’sfeelings of overload and unfairness, particularly for full-time working mothers. A study from the MATISSE laboratory of the CNRS in 2001 shows that in the family where both parents work full time the women assume 2/3 of the time dedicated to domestically tasks and children education.
Women mainly support the reconciliation between work and family and it is usually seen as a "women affair". The number and the age of the children do almost not influence the men career but it does for women working and living in a couple.
Women usually take responsibility for the majority of the care for the household and family. Even now, too many women decide to stop working when they have children, due to the double burden the combination of work and childcare would place on them. The work-life balance has repercussion for women that choose to put aside their professional career. The arrival of a child doesn’t affect the professional activity of the men as it does for women. Women have more difficulties to invest themselves in professional career than men. To be able to take care of the children and the domestically tasks women are also more working part-time.
The family tasks mainly done by women include the time for taking care of the children. A study from the INSEE institute in 2004 confirmed that women invest themselves 2 times more than men for the children homework's. The men spend more time to work, study, and train.
The men have a bigger implication in the public and professional sphere as soon as the first child arrives. They take the role of the authority and the knowledge, and work harder to assure good living conditions to the family. 36% of men find difficult the reconciliation between work and family.
The professionals taking care of the children are mainly women. These jobs are seen as natural for women since they are supposed to have natural competences to take care of the children. With such a conception it seems that no special requests and training are necessary for these kinds of jobs. The lack of professional and qualifications recognition but also of career advancement doesn't encourage the men in this sector of activity. The socialisation and education of boys, like the choice of guidance on courses to be followed in high school don't encourage them to this professional career (Only 3% of teachers of children with special needs are men). Added to all of that is the paedophile suspicions hanging on men. Working with young children looks like more suspicious and oblige the men to explain their choice not only about their motivations but also about their sexuality. The study programs are also too often based on the relation mother/child and participate to the image of being a feminine profession and have repercussions on stereotypes. The presence of men in such jobs could work in favour of equality between the sexes in showing for instance to the children that “care” tasks are not only reserved to women and mothers.
Concerning also the childminding system it is often noticed that fathers coming to pick up their children at the day care centres are not always received as a legitimate parent in certain institutions ("Could you tell to your wife that..."). The professionals do not talk with them as fathers but as mothers' partners. This comfort them in the second role or even legitimates their low implication in the education and the care of the children.
Moreover the men staying at home are still not very well seen by the rest of the French society. This is due to the depreciation of the domestically and parental tasks. It should be noted that such tasks are usually delegated to other women in forms of not well-paid and recognized jobs.
All these inequalities are often considered as natural data but are in fact the results of cultural and social foundation based on the difference between the sexes. This concept explained by the anthropological expert Françoise Héritier organises the sexes hierarchy with the female inferiority; the tasks accomplished by women are minimised and not recognised and are rarely taken in charged by men.
Economical barriers
The situation of men and women on the labour market: The women are working more in professions where the wages are lower. Studies show that women even with high education have more difficulties to access employment than men. They have less access to position of responsibilities; they have less choices of sector of activities (due to the guidance at school). They are working more part-time and stop more working with the arrival of children. The women with low income usually prefer to stop working for taking care of the children than having to pay for such services. The men earning usually more do not stop working for taking care of the children to avoid financial problems to the family.