The unequal distribution of responsibilities in household chores, as well as in the care of children and the elderly, has been culturally assigned to women, generating a negative impact on their labor rights. To overcome this gap, it is crucial to establish a system that promotes equal opportunities in the participation of paid work.through the implementation of work-family conciliation policies and tools.
This was explained by the director of the Center for Studies of Labor and Social Security Law at UTalca, Irene Rojas Miño, who indicated that said instrument “it would guarantee the right to equal treatment and opportunities in employment based on gender.”
However, “this single measure does not guarantee the incorporation of women into the workplace with equal opportunities, since it maintains gender roles and, in addition, leaves them as a different work group, which would maintain the current segmentation,” the academic explained.
For this reason, the labor law expert clarified, “it is necessary to reverse gender roles by involving men and women in care, from a perspective of co-responsibility. For this effect to occur, it is necessary to generate public policies that allow it.”
“In Chile, various conciliation instruments have been created that should be evaluated to know if they are the most appropriate.” and see if they are or have the potential to effectively achieve conciliation, that is, the incorporation of women and men in paid work with equal opportunities,” he added.
They investigate 4 key measures
To analyze these conciliation measures, academic Irene Rojas, together with researchers María Soledad Jofré, Lucía Planet and Pamela Martínez, are working on a Fondecyt project that – as its title indicates – contributes to the “Redefinition of conciliation measures between work and family in the Chilean systemin order to guarantee the right to equal treatment and opportunities in employment based on gender.”
In this regard, the academic explained that this study analyzes “four key institutes in defining conciliation policies. They are not the only ones, but we are doing it from the perspective of our academic specialty, which is the analysis of the regulation of labor relations, that is, from the right to work.”
“The first of these institutes is maternity protection. Then there is the issue of paid work times and care tasks and how they affect the work of working people. The third, which has been raised regarding the pandemic, is the impact of teleworking on reconciliation with equal opportunities. And, finally, an instrument that is very particular to Latin American countries and that is paid domestic work,” he explained.
The latter, the expert explained, will be analyzed from two perspectives “how, on the one hand, it facilitates the conciliation of other workers, but at the same time, “How conciliation is carried out for the domestic worker.”
Finally, the academic pointed out that, “The restructuring and reorganization of systems is required, including labor, in order to achieve equal opportunities in employment, which also means profound cultural changes, such as care activities being carried out equally by women and men” .
