UK minister calls for affordable child care to enable women to return to work

Date: 30/04/1998

By Simon Coss

PROVIDING mothers with affordable child-care facilities makes sound economic sense, UK deputy Women's Minister Joan Ruddock will tell an unprecedented gathering of her EU counterparts in Northern Ireland next week.

Ruddock, who will co-chair the meeting, argues that it will only be possible to encourage more women to enter the Union's labour force if they can afford to leave their children in nursery facilities while at work.

Many women currently find such kindergartens prohibitively expensive. "Child care is a fundamental economic issue. The health of the EU's economy depends on the active participation of women," Ruddock told European Voice this week.

Tackling the current under-representation of women in the EU's workforce was identified by last November's jobs summit as one of the major challenges facing policy-makers.

Ruddock believes, however, that governments will not make any advances in this area unless they get the child-care issue right. She says statistics show that the majority of mothers try to find paid work after their children reach a certain age. "Mothers do not want to reject their children, but they do want a balance in their lives," she said.

Research also indicates that many women face real problems in finding child-minding facilities within their budget, although the situation varies between EU member states. In France, for example, affordable state-sponsored crèches are widely available. In other countries, women face greater hardships.

Ruddock stresses that next Wednesday's (6 May) meeting in Belfast will not seek to draw up any EU-wide rules on child care. Instead, governments will be able to compare notes and learn from each other's best practice. "One of the things the UK will be able to flag up to other member states is the sort of initiatives we have taken here," she said, pointing to schemes with shared funding between the public and private sectors as well as projects run by non-governmental organisations.

Ruddock argues that many employers would be keen to help provide child-care facilities if the regulations in some member states were less bureaucratic. She also believes the European Commission has been "ahead of the thinking" on child-care issues.

She points to EU-wide schemes such as the 'Pathways to Professionalism' project, which provides information about child care, as examples of successful initiatives.

A report on the conclusions of the Belfast meeting will be submitted to the Cardiff summit in June and Ruddock hopes similar 'women's ministerials' will be held at least once a year. "For a long time the EU institutions have been perceived as primarily delivering for men. We want to send the message that women's issues are being mainstreamed," she said.

See also Section 9.4 (UK Presidency women and employment conference, Belfast, 5-6.5.98)