What Choice of Equality for Workers with Family Responsibilities?

Abstract: Gone are the days when women were exclusively confined to care work in the private sphere and men dominated in the public sphere. Still, the increase in the number of women in gainful employment has not engendered a more equitable division of family responsibilities inside the family unit. In fact, the birth of a child often entails in itself a ‘re-traditionalisation’ of working and family patterns, notwithstanding the education or work history of the mother or the gender equal ideals of the partners: the breadwinner position of employed men increases, while women who have otherwise left their traditional carer roles return to it once the children are born. Still, many women decide to remain active or return to the labour market after a prolonged leave. Because of perceptions about their capabilities as carers and not as workers, the struggle to reconcile work and family life is more pronounced in the case of women workers. It is the central tenet of this thesis that the effective equality of workers with family responsibilities can be realised by employing the transformative equality concept, meaning that the structural disadvantage against women workers can be overcome only when there is a change in the traditional gender roles of men and women. At the same time, the right design of work-family reconciliation measures has tremendous potential to contribute to this change. For instance, measures aimed at reconciling the work-family conflict have to address both men and women in order to overcome past inequalities produced by the biological difference and/or socially constructed gender roles. Additionally, social partners have a crucial role in expanding the bargaining power of the worker and facilitating the reconciliation of the work-family conflict.