Women’s professional activity can be increased through wider access to good quality care and education for children, reconstruction of the dominant family model, modification of the family support system and improvement of access to health care for the elderly – recommend the authors of the report „Improving the situation of women in employment”, which was prepared by the Lewiatan Confederation.

„Increasing women’s economic activity is crucial for the development of our economy. In many aspects, sticking to the current social, labor market or fiscal policies from year to year will worsen the economic situation of women, and thus also the economic one – warns Mariusz Zielonka, economic expert of the Lewiatan Confederation.

First of all, greater incentives for local governments to participate in the creation of places in nurseries should be considered. However, this support would have to be directed from the top down to regions where there is a much lower female labour force participation and where there are clear shortages of nursery places. Therefore, the criteria for access to the Maluch Plus programme should be changed, which should reward specific areas of Polish, not because of the unemployment rate as it is currently happening, but e.g. due to the number of economically inactive women in relation to the total population of the voivodship or country. Taking into account the unemployment rate, which for the key age group is already much lower than the national average and is not clearly gender-differentiated, does not support the return of women to the labour market.

The second measure that could help women’s return to the labour market is a much higher subsidy for the employment of additional care for a child up to 3 years of age. Currently, the Act on the care of children up to 3 years of age allows for the conclusion of an activation agreement with the child’s guardian. In the case of concluding such an agreement, contributions to ZUS are reduced by 50% of the minimum wage for a given year. In other words, in the case of employing a babysitter or caregiver on a mandate contract for the equivalent of the minimum wage from 2021 (PLN 2800 gross), ZUS pays about PLN 250 contribution. One solution could be a complete exemption from social security contributions for people employed to care for children up to 3 years of age.

The conditions for combining parental functions and participation in the labour market include three elements. One concerns family policy solutions and the possibility of combining professional work with family, i.e. fulfilling parental functions and participation in the labour market. Another is the structures of the labour market, related to the possibility of taking up and maintaining work, the use of flexible forms of employment and the organization of work. The third is a cultural element concerning the perception of the social roles of women and men (the involvement of fathers in the care of children).

Implementing the policy of reconciling work and family life is a challenge on three levels: state policy (what law to create to promote the reconciliation of roles, what tools to create for employers to encourage them to use these solutions), hr policies of employers (how to organize work to maintain maximum effectiveness of employees and enable them to reconcile professional and family roles), employee attitudes (how to organize professional and family life,  so that none of these spheres suffer).

There are many scientific studies proving the harmfulness to the economic activity of women of the introduction and subsequent extension of the 500+ program. More than 5 years of the program’s operation should give decision-makers an unambiguous answer about the net costs of this solution. However, the legal changes introduced seem to be going in the opposite, more populist than scientific direction. Nevertheless, consideration should be given to changing the rules of the scheme by granting benefits to children whose legal guardians are present on the labour market. Due to the fact that from 2022 the Social Insurance Institution will be responsible for the payment of the benefit, it should verify whether the application meets the following criteria:

• each of the legal guardians or, in the case of single parents, the legal guardian has social security contributions paid by the payer in the amount of at least 50% of the minimum wage,
• receives unemployment benefit, and
• remains in the education system.

In addition, the right to benefit should be dependent on the income of carers, so as to preserve the only positive impact of the whole programme, i.e. the fight against poverty and social inequalities. The funds saved in this way from the state budget could be used to integrate older people into the labour market.

In our opinion, the current measures to increase the professional activity of older people do not bring the expected result. They focus on the financial and cost side of employment and do not solve the key aspect – improving the health of people around retirement age or providing prevention.

The funds saved as part of the change in the rules for the distribution of the 500+ benefit should be used to finance annual surveys of employees of pre-retirement age in both private and public institutions – this would be decided by the employee himself, depending on availability. On the other hand, labour offices should be given the opportunity to issue referrals for the unemployed for such examination packages, on the same terms as the employer issues referrals for occupational medicine examinations.

The report was created as part of the project: Strengthening social dialogue in Poland – a model of initiating social dialogue by employers financed by Norway through the Norwegian Funds 2014-2021 as part of the „Social Dialogue – Decent Work” Programme.

Source: https://www.prawo.pl/kadry/jak-zwiekszyc-aktywnosc-zawodowa-kobiet-lewiatan,513059.html

Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.