Policy Brief : Babies and Bosses: Balancing work and family life

Are work and family life compatible? All too often parents find it impossible to balance employment and care commitments. As a result, it is becoming increasingly common to start a family later, have fewer children or have no children at all. Alternatively some parents may choose to temporarily or permanently stop working, despite the fact that they would like to have jobs, because of time constraints, no access to affordable childcare or difficulties in resuming their careers after childbirth. Reconciling work and family life is important to individuals and societies. Parents who wish to care for their children by giving up work should have their choice respected. Often, however, this “choice” is constrained, because parents see no way of giving their children the care and attention they need at the same time as working in today’s demanding labour market. Yet children whose parents are not in paid work are more likely to be poor, while mothers who have interrupted their careers to care for their children are at higher risk of poverty when they are older. However, pursuing a career leads to postponement of childbirth and declining fertility rates. In Switzerland, for example, where combining a career and motherhood is difficult, 40% of university-educated women are still childless at age 40. Strong economies and manageable pension systems in the future depend on both higher fertility and higher employment rates, making these trends particularly disconcerting. The ability to generate income in a fulfilling job and the desire to provide the best for one’s children, giving them the care and nurturing they need, do not have to be mutually exclusive.

This Policy Brief examines the challenges that parents face when trying to balance work and family life, the impact on society and the types of policies that OECD governments are using to help parents find the right balance.