Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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giving the State a regulatory role reflected in employment legislation and even in the laws governing the
operation of businesses.
The very different situations existing in the countries with respect to the care of young children,
along with the relatively low proportion of women working in occupations covered by employment
legislation, have created fresh childcare difficulties for families at a time when the State has withdrawn
from several areas of social provision. The ideal model of social policies inspired by the welfare State was
underpinned by the assumption that families contained a “male breadwinner” and a “housewife”, with
childcare needs being covered by the woman’s domestic work. This system, where the “wage earner” was
assumed to be the man, was promoted by income transfers in the form of family allowances or social
insurance; in addition, it was the male worker’s formal employment that gave the rest of his family access
to health and social security systems. All this was supplemented by universal health and education
policies in many countries. Although this context was changed substantially by the sectoral reforms of the
1990s, laws and contracts persist in conferring on women both labour rights that are shared with men and
other “gender-related rights” that entail a greater workload. The right to work is unthinkingly merged with
the obligation of care.
The three key components for analysing caregiving capacity are “time to care, money to care and
caregiving services”. Although the public policy implications of these components go beyond employment
legislation and they concern more than the early months of the life cycle, they are indicative of the links
between maternity and paternity leave, childbirth and adoption benefits and the regulation of day-care
centres and crèches attached to parents’ workplaces (Pautassi, Faur and Gherardi, 2004).
The way these three components are structured will generate alternatives that in some way or
other help to consolidate different models of care in the dynamic of gender relations within families. The
role of the State is far from neutral, whether in formulating childcare policies or in regulating employment
relations between the market and male and female family members.
In employment legislation, the first key element (time to provide care) ties in with the second,
namely the availability of financial resources to allow adults to devote their time to caring for a newborn
child. Most parental leave (meaning periods of time for which workers may absent themselves from their
employment, whilst retaining the right to resume it, because of the birth, adoption or guardianship of a
child or the need to care for a child, so that the availability of time and money is guaranteed) is granted to
working women for periods that vary considerably in the different countries but are generally no less than
12 weeks. The situation for men is strikingly different. They are allowed only two or three days off from
the day of the birth and do not have the option of taking more time off to look after the newborn child.
Having said that, numerous initiatives have been put forward in the region’s countries in recent years (and
many of them have now passed into law) to extend paternity leave to between 10 and 20 days, or else, as
in Chile, the law clearly specifies that leave and protection against dismissal pass to the father in the event
of the mother’s death. Again, the mother or father (at the choice of the former) is entitled to exceptional
leave should the child suffer a serious illness during its first year of life. In Colombia, Law No. 755 of
2002, known as the “Ley María”, grants the spouse or permanent partner eight days’ paternity leave if
both parents pay social security contributions or four days’ if only the mother contributes, while in 2005
the Cayman Islands adopted a law granting two weeks’ paternity leave to civilian workers (one week
paid, the second unpaid). In Puerto Rico, Law No. 165 of 10 August 2002 amends the public service law
to guarantee maternity leave for women and extend it to 12 weeks; in addition, Law No. 184 of 3 August
2004 establishes the right to special leave, such as five days’ paternity leave and leave to care for family
members. In Grenada, it was agreed in 1999 that additional leave should be granted to any male or female