Transcript RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

RECONCILING
WORK AND FAMILY
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Rhoda Reddock
Yvonne Bobb-Smith
BACKGROUND
 Commissioned by the Work and Family
Programme of the INTERNATIONAL
LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO)
 With special emphasis on the following
Conventions:
o Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention
(No. 156 of 1981)
o Maternity Protection Family Responsibilities
Convention (No. 183 of 2000)
OBJECTIVES
 TO DOCUMENT IMPORTANT CHANGES
OCCURING IN FAMILY AND WORK IN
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO o
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Changes in family structure & role;
Implications for changing nature of work;
Policies & practices to reduce work-family conflict;
Gender impact of work-family conflict;
Impact of family responsibilities on earning and poverty;
Recommendations for Reconciling Work with Family.
RESEARCH METHODS
 PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION
 SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION
PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION
 FORMAL INTERVIEWS e.g.
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Workers in Social Services
Labour Consultants;
Family social workers;
Human resource managers;
Trade union leadership;
Tobago House of Assembly.
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Female and male parents
Consumers in malls
Workers in the informal economy
Workers in Early childhood centres
 INFORMAL
INTERVIEWS/OBSERVATIONS e.g.
SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION
 PUBLICATIONS AND ONLINE
RESOURCES
Industrial Court Library
Family Court Library
Ministry of Social Development
Ministry of Labour and Micro-enterprise
Development
 University of the West Indies
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 Centre for Gender & Development studies;
 Central Statistical office
 ILO and Gov’t of T&T Online Resources.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation
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Women as household heads
“households below the poverty line tend to be larger and
headed by females who are often single mothers with
dependent children, or contain at least one elderly person
living alone or in an extended family setting sometimes
having responsibility for the entire household”.
Elderly in Households
22% of all households had at least one older person (65
years and older). Of these, 42% were extended family
households while 21% comprised persons living alone.
Male Single Parents
There are a minority of single father families. They were
more likely than married fathers to be living in an extended
or complex household and to have more adult support
available.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation
WORK AND CHANGING FAMILY TRADITIONS
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Parents utilize the services of paid help for
preschoolers, such as daily or live-in domestic
help.
They place children in the care of neighbours or
relatives.
They give responsibilities to older siblings;
They use private or public child-care services.
They hire help for after school care.
They choose jobs, which have flexible hours to
manipulate their work time around hours for
childcare.
They establish their own businesses.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation
FAMILY, WORK AND THE SEXUAL DIVISION OF
LABOUR
 Grandparents, from fifty up, perform
parenting roles especially in cases of
abandonment of children by biological
parents.
 This form of informal adoption arises out
of unemployment, migration, substance
abuse, death caused by HIV/AIDS,
murder and incarceration.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation
 Children in households with younger heads under 30 and 30-39 years of age are 80% and
40% more likely to attend school than children in
households with older heads – those age[d]
40+…”(Bronte Tinkew,1998:27).
 Joan Rawlins’ (2004) study found that 82% of
caregivers of the elderly were women. Forty-five
percent were over 50 years old and seven
percent, between 20-29 years old. Spouses
cared for 23%.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation
 Women find great difficulty in continuing
breastfeeding after returning to work;
“I returned to work when my son was 3½ months old. I visit his
daycare every working day to breastfeed him and to express milk.
How do I do it? My day goes like this: I breastfeed him at about
7:00 am before we leave home. I drop my (two) older children to
school and then leave my baby in St James. I begin my lunch hour at
11:00 am and drive for 20 minutes from downtown, Port of Spain
(capital) to St James (suburbs). When I arrive there, he is usually
hungry and looking out for me, so I breastfeed him immediately… I
eat the lunch I have brought with me and drive back to work,
getting there by 12:30 pm” (Helen Ross, t.i.b.s NEWS April//June 2004:
1-2).
CASE STUDY 1 - COPING WITH WORK &
BREASTFEEDING
HR BREASTFEEDS HER 3 ½ MONTH OLD
SON AT LUNCH TIME  Leaves her office downtown at 11:00 am,
 Drives herself and takes 20+ minutes to
arrive at the daycare in St. James.
 Breastfeeds him;
 Eats her lunch;
 Returns to work at 12:30 pm.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation – Family
and the Sexual Division of Labour Cont’d
 Women continue to have major responsibilities
for housework and child care;
 Some men have become more sensitized and
share responsibilities mainly in transporting
children to and from school, supervising
homework and grooming children;
 Women reported difficulties in assigning
housework to family members including children.
Trends in Family and Household Organisation – Family
and the Sexual Division of Labour Cont’d
 Mrs D, is a 51 year old hotel-worker, and head of
a three–generation household of seven persons,
Her daughter and three granddaughters, 16, 14,
10 years live with her. She copes by giving her
daughter and grandchildren responsibilities for
domestic tasks. Her husband, who is a builder,
primarily does repairs to the house and yard
work. She spends her time organizing and
coordinating responsibilities
CASE STUDY 3 -COPING THROUGH DIVISION OF
LABOUR
 Mrs. D, hotel-worker, Tobago is head of a 3generation household.
 Her daughter and 3 grand-daughters share
responsibilities for domestic tasks.
 Her husband does house and yard tasks.
 This system barely enables her to go regularly to
her job, while she has to coordinate family
responsibilities.
ASSESSMENT (1)
NEW FORMS OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT ARE FOUND IN:
 Difficulties of transportation and commuting. Traffic
congestion and poor and unreliable public
transportation including absence of a School Bus
Service;
Mrs C. leaves Palmiste (South Trinidad) for her job in the
capital city, Port of Spain at 5:15 am and arrives at work at
6:00 am. Her seven year old son travels to school a few
miles away in a carpool. When his father is not at work, he
takes him to school. She leaves work between 4:00 and
5:00 pm and arrives home between 6:30 and 8:00 pm in
the evening. She notes that quality time with her son on a
daily basis is reduced to merely an hour or less, as she sees
him go to bed, and perhaps reads to him.
CASE STUDY 2 - COPING WITH TRANSPORTATION
AND SECURITY
 Mr. J., Taxi-driver, shuttles his 3 children to
school and back home.
 Two kids are at a school in Maraval and the
other is downtown.
 This reduces his earnings during peak hours.
Assessment 1 Cont’d
Rapid Industrialization and Urbanization
• Families and households have had to respond to
the quick pace of social and technological change,
and the attendant social dislocation;
• Increasing work demands;
• Women’s insistence, generally, for a life beyond
the household;
• Absence of family members for support due to
migration; increasing employment of women;
grandmothers no longer always available.
ASSESSMENT (3)
Work hours and school hours are not synchronized;
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Work hours differ from the school hours and
this is often a cause of much stress.
Schools may end at 12.15, 1.30, 2.00, 2.30,
3.00 or 5.15 p.m.
This stress has been heightened with the
increase in violent crime causing discomfort
for parents and children.
FINDINGS (1)
 Female parents make a valid attempt to combine their
need for career fulfillment and economic autonomy but
few support systems exist for them;
 This was especially so for poor working-class mothers
who may have to work when their children return home
from school and during school vacations.
FINDINGS (2)
 Neither the Employers Consultative Association nor the
Trade Union Movement have systems in place to
address this issue;
 Little effort by the State as well to address the
compatibility between workers’ rights and their family
responsibilities.
 Efforts aimed at providing childcare services in
work vicinities such as .office complexes,
industrial estates need to be accelerated.
FINDINGS (3)
 Increasingly citizens’ primary concerns are
related to school transportation and school
locations.
 The business sector has given much less
priority to the reduction of work-family
conflict.
 The state sector has indirectly addressed
some aspects with initiatives like early
childhood education services and the
School Nutrition Programme.
FINDINGS (4)
YET, CITIZENS STILL RELY
STRONGLY ON PERSONAL
STRATEGIES TO COPE.
RECOMMENDATIONS (1)
THE STATE (Selected)
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Establishment of a multidisciplinary task force to examine
the recommendations of this study and recommend
legislative and other changes;
Develop a pilot project of one Family-Friendly Government
Ministry to include – a crèche, breast-feeding breaks, after
school care centre, vacation programme; etc.
Review the draft National Gender Policy and implement
relevant recommendations;
Reintroduction of the Basic Conditions of Work Bill;
Review the National Transportation Plan with a focus on
school transport;
RECOMMENDATIONS (1)
THE STATE (Selected)
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The strengthening of the Ministry of Labour to better
monitor conditions of work in the low-wage sections
of the public and private sector;
Rationalization of school opening and closing hours;
Greater decentralization of essential services and
public offices to main towns and Tobago to prevent
time lost in transacting personal business e.g.
passports, ID cards, motor vehicle licences, taxation
related matters etc.
Consider offering tax incentives to firms that
implement practices that address work-family
conflict.
RECOMMENDATIONS (2)
PRIVATE SECTOR (Selected)
 Develop a workplace culture to encourage
workers’ contribution to work-family compatibility
policies;
 Implement flexitime arrangements;
 Develop collectively funded solutions, e.g.
homework centres, crèches, and so on at the
workplace.
 Document and Publicize Best Practices
RECOMMENDATIONS (3)
TRADE UNIONS (Selected)
o Introduce measures aimed at addressing workfamily conflict into collective bargaining;
o Implement sensitivity and awareness
programmes on work-family reconciliation;
o Facilitate gender sensitivity training for all trade
union personnel – male and female;
o Develop a public education campaign on this
issue and its impact on – parenting, youth
criminality; worker commitment etc..
CONCLUSION
THE CREATION OF
FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORK
SITUATIONS DEMANDS A CHANGE
IN THE MINDSET WHICH
SEPARATES INCOME-EARNING
WORK FROM FAMILY AND
HOUSEHOLD.
IT CHALLENGES ALL SECTORS,
HOWEVER, IT REQUIRES
CREATIVITY AND LONG-TERM
COMMITMENT.
THANK YOU!