Convention 156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities concerns both men and women and also specifies that work-family reconciliation measures should be undertaken “with a view to creating effective equality of opportunity and treatment for men and women workers”.
In 1992, the ILO requested governments to report on their law and practice with respect to Convention 156. The review of the reports received by the Committee of Experts concluded that “relatively few governments have yet adopted and implemented an explicit national policy concerning men and women workers with family responsibilities in line with the Convention.” Trying to assess whether the various measures concerning employment, the family, social services and benefits were sufficient to comprise a national policy was difficult “especially when many of the measures taken in these areas appear to have been inspired by concerns largely irrelevant to the overall objective of creating effective equality between men and women.” (ILO, 1993, p.23).
Many well-meaning measures designed to reduce work-family conflicts and protect workers with family roles, can turn out, in practice, to reinforce the gender distribution of household responsibilities and labour market discrimination against women. The difficulty is that measures may propose special conditions for workers with family responsibilities (extended leave, reduced hours) which are explicitly or implicitly aimed at women. When men do not use these possibilities, they may end up reinforcing the female homemaker/carer norm and the expectation that men can continue as “ideal” workers unencumbered by family responsibilities. Nevertheless, such measures may facilitate the employment of women who would not otherwise be able to earn income.
It is important to ensure that men's caring role is recognized and that benefits for parents, such as special leave or crèche facilities, are available for fathers, thus avoiding discrimination against men. In addition, efforts are being made in some countries to actively encourage greater use of parental benefits by men.The issues are complex and concern the basic organization of society. Information Sheet 2 considers in more detail gender equality and work-family measures.
