Women shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid work around the world, and gender imbalances in the distribution of care work constitute a root cause of women’s economic and social disempowerment. To further discuss about the implications and consequences of policy options related to care, the ILO in in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower (MoM) facilitated a tripartite social dialogue on care economy.

Held in Jakarta from from 1-2 March, the dialogue was attended by around 100 representatives of the governments, workers, employers and academia. In their opening remarks, both Ferryando, Ministry of Manpower’s Coordinator for Labour Relations and Michiko Miyamoto, Director of ILO Indonesia and Timor-Leste, highlighted the importance of policies on care work and care economy. They also emphasized the need for transformative care work policy that can create millions of jobs while ensuring a more gender equal world of work.

At the beginning of the dialogue, Early Dewi Nuriana, ILO’s Programme Officer for Care Economy, introduced the 5R principles of the care economy: Recognition, reduction, redistribution, representation and reward. “Only half of Indonesian women can participate in the workforce, compared to more than eighty percent of men. The 5R concept can lead to the needed social changes that prevent women to leave the workforce due to care and domestic responsibilities,” she added.

Maternity and paternity leaves

The dialogue also examined that women’s reproductive functions and imbalance childcare responsibility between men and women have become one of the factors that determine women participation in the labour market. To date, the Indonesian People's Representative Council (DPR) has announced a new bill on maternal and child health (RUU KIA) which proposes an extension of maternity and paternity leave.

The bill proposes the extension of maternity leave from 3 to 6 months and paternity leave from 2 to 40 days. Still in the review process by relevant ministries, bill has received various responses from employers on the labour cost implication and from workers on less recruitment of female employee or more contract termination during pregnancy.

Responding to these concerns, the ILO’s recommendation is to integrate maternity and paternity benefits to social security system. “Employers are currently paying maternity allowance with their own liabilities, and workers are relying on employers’ compliance. Our sampling survey showed that permanent workers had higher likelihood to enjoy maternity allowance under the current regime. With social insurance, more workers will be able to enjoy the benefits because it will be paid by public schemes instead of individual employer’s liability,” said Ippei Tsuruga, ILO’s programme manager for Social Protection.

During the discussion, Ippei also presented the results of ILO actuarial study that to have a 6-month maternity leave with full salary, the contribution of 1.3% is required; while for a-40 day paternity leave with full pay requires a contribution of 0.25%.

A best practice from one of the multinational companies was also shared. Sifalina, Industrial Relations Officer of PT HM Sampoerna, explained that since December last year, the company has changed the terms of maternity and paternity leaves to main care takers and secondary care takers. “This is to avoid dichotomy between women and men regarding childcare that should be an equal obligation,” she said.

Sifalina also shared that it took a consultation and analysis process of one year between the management and trade unions to reach into an agreement of 4.5 months fully paid and 1.5 unpaid maternity leave and 5 days fully paid paternity leave with 2 months paid leave as well as an additional a-month unpaid leave that can be taken throughout the period of one year.

Decent work deficit persists in care services

In terms of care services, the availability of quality childcare facilities is still limited in Indonesia. Care work is still lacking in policy and, as a result many care workers must work without a decent pay.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Netti Herawati, M.Sc, Chairperson of the Early Childhood Educators Association (Himpaudi), explained that to date there are 5,811,862 children aged 0-6 years who are educated and cared by 419,574 teachers and caregivers. However, 72.70 percent of caregivers earn less than IDR 250,000 and have no social protection. Even 9.4 percent of them do not get paid or work in a voluntarily basis.

“These figures show that the role of care workers who have a significant role to directly support women to stay in the workplace is still not recognized and far from having and decent working conditions,” she stated.

Responding to this, Endah Prihatiningsih, Policy Analyst at the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection, acknowledged that there are still challenges in providing adequate and efficient childcare services in Indonesia. “There is an inequality of services between urban and rural areas in terms of availability and quality. This is homework to create good policy and standard for childcare service to be affordable for all workers and built upon the best interests of the children," said Endah

The ILO latest report on care economy reveals that the care economy could generate nearly 300 million jobs worldwide by 2035. Therefore, transformative policy really does matter in determining the level of employment, working conditions, pay and status of care workers. The existence and representativeness of workers’ organizations covering care workers, as well as the coverage of social dialogue mechanisms, including collective bargaining, also play an important role.