Survey: Employment, Women, and Childcare
4 February 2014
Read by 1630 persons
Women entering the workforce has become an unavoidable reality and necessity, although this situation sometimes prevents them from meeting the demands of family life. In this regard, working women are torn between the domestic and public spheres. Indeed, women who work full-time spend less time with their children. This constraint forces them to make arrangements to ensure the children's education. Some rely on parents and spouses, others on the help of domestic workers, neighbors, daycare centers, and kindergartens. The issue of balancing family and professional life is less complicated for women working part-time. The spouse's participation in household chores and childcare helps minimize the "harm" of women's activity.
These conclusions are the result of fieldwork based on a qualitative and quantitative approach through documentary research, questionnaires, and interviews.
Introduction
Among the new features characterizing the behavior of the Tunisian population in the job market is the rapid increase in the overall rate of female activity. Going from 5.6% in 1966 to 22.8% in 1999, 23.8% in 2000, and 24.7% in 2008.
Indeed, women have always worked. Women's work is therefore neither a modern phenomenon nor an innovation linked to industrialization. What has changed over the decades, however, are the forms of work in which women are engaged.
In all countries of the world, the opening of the labor market to women has not resulted in a rapid participation of female citizens in paid employment. For many years, women have been discouraged, through various measures, from playing an active role in professional life. They have suffered multiple forms of discrimination.
Nowadays, many laws have been amended, some discrimination has disappeared, others have changed their face. Today, paid women's work has become a social and economic reality, with more and more women pursuing paid activity.
"The progress of women's work is irreversible and inevitable. But overall, the paid work of women is characterized as being low-skilled, low-productivity, irregular, less well-paid, and less valued than that of men. Furthermore, it is most often considered temporary. Customs, habits, and traditions mean that most women leave their jobs at the birth of a child. In fact, they exchange paid work for family and domestic tasks (unpaid and even less recognized): caring for and educating children, taking care of the household…"
(Anxo D. and Daune-Richard A.-M., (1991))
Currently, in Tunisia, it is accepted that women benefit from the general movement of changing lifestyles and improving their employment conditions. However, structural shortcomings affect large segments of the labor market, but given the specific constraints that mark the daily life of women as working mothers.
Read the rest of the article
Nawaat.org
Published January 13, 2014.
Posted online February 4, 2014.
These conclusions are the result of fieldwork based on a qualitative and quantitative approach through documentary research, questionnaires, and interviews.
Introduction
Among the new features characterizing the behavior of the Tunisian population in the job market is the rapid increase in the overall rate of female activity. Going from 5.6% in 1966 to 22.8% in 1999, 23.8% in 2000, and 24.7% in 2008.
Indeed, women have always worked. Women's work is therefore neither a modern phenomenon nor an innovation linked to industrialization. What has changed over the decades, however, are the forms of work in which women are engaged.
In all countries of the world, the opening of the labor market to women has not resulted in a rapid participation of female citizens in paid employment. For many years, women have been discouraged, through various measures, from playing an active role in professional life. They have suffered multiple forms of discrimination.
Nowadays, many laws have been amended, some discrimination has disappeared, others have changed their face. Today, paid women's work has become a social and economic reality, with more and more women pursuing paid activity.
"The progress of women's work is irreversible and inevitable. But overall, the paid work of women is characterized as being low-skilled, low-productivity, irregular, less well-paid, and less valued than that of men. Furthermore, it is most often considered temporary. Customs, habits, and traditions mean that most women leave their jobs at the birth of a child. In fact, they exchange paid work for family and domestic tasks (unpaid and even less recognized): caring for and educating children, taking care of the household…"
(Anxo D. and Daune-Richard A.-M., (1991))
Currently, in Tunisia, it is accepted that women benefit from the general movement of changing lifestyles and improving their employment conditions. However, structural shortcomings affect large segments of the labor market, but given the specific constraints that mark the daily life of women as working mothers.
Read the rest of the article
Nawaat.org
Published January 13, 2014.
Posted online February 4, 2014.
