Maternity -Friendly Laws

JUN 21 2018

Findings from a recent World Bank (WB) study published on these pages on Tuesday (19 June) said, that having on board quality crèches may act as an inducement to get more women to work, therewith adding momentum to an otherwise sluggish economy that a lower middle income country like Sri Lanka is currently suffering from.

It highlighted the fact that the island has a low women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) of 36.6 per cent. The definition of LFPR is the number of persons of 15 years of age and above in a population, in this case women and their participation in labour or employment activities or are ‘actively’ searching for jobs, though unemployed, as a percentage of all women of age 15 years and above, regardless of  whether they are economically active or not.

A low 36.6 per cent LFPR for women compares with a high LFPR of 74.5 per cent for men, more than double that of women’s. This distortion also has to be looked at in the context that the majority population in the island is women, comprising 53 per cent of the total population, whereas men comprise a mere 47 per cent.

It may however, be unrealistic to expect the LFPR for women to be in parity with men at 74.5 per cent due to the dawn of nuclear families in Sri Lanka, i.e. just the parents and their children with no other extended family support as adduced in the WB study and the seemingly obvious reasons of the need for pre and postnatal care, where, as dictated by nature, it’s women who are in the forefront of meeting these biological changes and demands.

Nonetheless, a possibility to ‘keep’ women at work despite these physiological transformations and sociological changes is to open up avenues for part time work for them at their homes, while at the same time looking after their infants.

A rise to a 50 per cent LFPR for women, something in between the current 36.6 per cent for them and 74.5 per cent for men may be a plausible target to achieve.

WB findings also revealed that having a child under five years at home makes Sri Lankan women 7.4 per cent less likely to join the workforce than women without children, compared to a lower value of six per cent just under five years ago in 2013. If this trend is unchecked, there is a possibility that sooner or later, chances of women with children under five not wanting to enter the labour force may go beyond the single digit percentage range.

Such a scenario may be a cause for concern with Sri Lanka being home to an ageing population. That means a shrinking labour force having to support an ever growing number of dependents, not just the young, the school going and the differently-abled from which genre there may be a fair composition who are unable to fend for themselves, but also a growing number of the elderly, due to the very nature of their physiological degeneration, though not necessarily followed by a deterioration in their mental capacities, with age.

In such a demographic transition, Sri Lanka needs ‘more and more’ labour at work to fend for the needs of those who are unable to fend for themselves due to reasons adduced above.  One way of solving the problem is to up the retirement age and the other way, to both up the retirement age and also to get more women to work.

A scan on the internet showed that Sri Lanka has ‘at least a few’ crèches which care for infants from three months old and above, but what is as important is the quality of those crèches? There may be a need to legislate minimal standards for such crèches. As equally important is to have legislation on board to allow working mothers to drop in at those crèches from time to time to see about the wellbeing of their infants and children without being penalized by their employer.

There is need for women labour in several fields, not least the garment sector. More maternity-friendly laws may solve this problem.