WUNRN
The European Women’s Lobby - 18 October 2010
The European
Women’s Lobby (EWL) is the largest umbrella organisation of women’s
associations in the European Union (EU), working to promote women’s rights and
equality between women and men.
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EWL POSITION - EU RIGHTS & ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY AS MATERNITY
LEAVE, MUST NOT BE HIJACKED BY BUSINESS INTERESTS, AS OF UK
Under
The European Parliament’s Impact Assessment of the proposed legislation
unambiguously concluded that 20 weeks of fully compensated maternity leave is a
highly sound economic investment. The costs in the immediate term were
estimated at less than 0,06% of GDP in all countries studied, and less than
0,01% of GDP in more than half of them. These costs would be offset by an
increase of women’s participation in the labour market of just 1%.[2][2]
‘Because of the lack of suitable measures for reconciliation between work and family life, the employment rates of European women are very low – not to mention the fertility rates’, explains Ms. Triems. In 2007, the employment rate for women with dependent children was 65,5%, compared with 91,7% for men.[3][3] ‘This is a human rights issue which just happens to make excellent economic sense. It is time to move beyond tired and skewed economic arguments and really invest in our societies and our futures.’
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For more information, please contact Myria
Vassiliadou, Secretary General of the European Women’s Lobby, T: (+32) 478 13
63 52, or Leanda Barrington-Leach, EWL Communications and Media Officer, barrington@womenlobby.org, T: (+32)
488 41 94 21, and see and www.womenlobby.org.
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Thank you.
[1][1] Equal
Opportunities Commission, Fairness and Freedom, 2007, page 75 and p.77; http://www.management-issues.com/2007/8/2/research/legislation-making-women-less-employable.asp;
Gallagher/O'Leary, Recruitment 2020: How
recruitment is changing and why it matters, DEMOS 2007, page 40
[2][2] European Parliament, Costs and benefits of
maternity and paternity leave, workshop 5 Oct. 2010, study. European
Parliament, Policy department C: citizens’ rights and constitutional affairs,
Gender equality. PE 425.629
[3][3] European Commission, Staff Working
Document accompanying the Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament
and of the Council amending Council Directive 92/85/EEC, impact assessment
report: SEC(2008) 2526/2
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STRONG EUROPEAN MATERNITY LEAVE PROVISIONS KEY TO
SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES, SAYS EUROPEAN WOMEN'S LOBBY
15October 2010
[Brussels, 15 October 2010]
As the Members of the European Parliament prepare to vote on European maternity
leave provisions, women’s organisations from across the EU are mobilising to
back European legislation guaranteeing at least 20 weeks fully paid leave for
new mothers, and two for fathers. ‘The 736 European parliamentarians are not
just being asked to cast a vote on a detail of legislation’, says Brigitte
Triems, President of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL). ‘They are being asked to
make a fundamental societal choice: whether or not to make it possible for
women living in Europe to have children and at the same continue to participate
in the labour market and secure their economic independence.’
The vote on the revision of
the Maternity Leave Directive is scheduled for 20 October. The 1992 legislation
provides for 14 weeks maternity leave but without any binding measures on pay.
The amendments proposed in the Estrela Report (so-called after its MEP
Rapporteur, Edite Estrela), in particular as regards full pay, have been
controversial, with the business lobby vocally claiming the burden on employers
will be excessive.
‘These provisions are an
imperative to ensure human rights and gender equality, but they are equally an
imperative to ensure Europe’s social and economic sustainability’, counters
Myria Vassiliadou, EWL Secretary General. ‘With our ageing population, we
simply cannot afford to exclude women from the labour market, and we cannot
afford ever plummeting birth-rates! Maternity, paternity and parental leave
provisions are immediate investments in better, more equal societies, and
long-term investments in healthy economies.’
The high return to
investment in women’s rights is a widely accepted development principle.
According to a report presented by the Swedish Presidency of the EU in 2009, EU
GDP would rise almost 30% if gender gaps were eliminated. The growth potential
is as high as 35% in the UK, the Netherlands, Greece and Malta.[1]
According to the EWL, the
focus on employers is misleading: ‘In 24 out of 27 Member States, it is the
state and not employers who takes on the costs of maternity leave provisions’,
explains Ms. Triems. ‘This is most certainly a worthwhile investment. European
governments spent trillions of Euros in the last years rescuing banks, car and
construction companies; the rescue scheme for UK banks alone cost taxpayers up
to £850 billion. [2] Investing in
mothers and children costs far less and is investing in the future of society
as a whole. This is exactly the right time to invest a comparably low amount of
money to empower half of the current population – not to mention the next
generation.’
The EWL is calling for full
pay, without restrictions or ceilings, for a duration of 20 weeks. ‘This time
span comes closer to giving women the choice of following international
standards on breastfeeding, [3] and more generally empowers women to take as much time to
recuperate as they choose to after giving birth, and does not curtail their
chances on the labour market’, says Myria Vassiliadou. The OECD found in 2006
that in countries where the maternity leave provisions are the longest, female
employment rates were also highest with over 80% in Iceland and over 70% in
Denmark and Sweden -well above the OECD average of 57%.
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