Building a supportive nation for mothers

Come Mother's Day, social media feeds get filled with loving and sentimental posts, thanking mothers for their contributions to our lives. There’s also a flood of images celebrating multi-tasking women who juggle brooms, knives, babies, gadgets, and whatnot! It is a time when the World voices the value of mothers. 

However, rather than putting mothers on a pedestal for one day of the year or perpetuating the myth of the superhuman multitasking mother, we need to deeply reflect and acknowledge the multiple burdens society places on mothers. From managing households to caring for children and elderly parents, the physical, mental, and emotional toll is significant, often unrecognised, and certainly uncompensated.

This burden isn't just detrimental to individual women; it has far-reaching consequences for the economy and society as a whole.

The triple burden of paid work, unpaid domestic work and care work creates a “sticky floor” that acts as a barrier to women’s careers and we see mothers leaving the workforce in droves, leading to economic losses.

Many, who persist despite the challenges, pay a heavy toll in terms of their own physical and mental well-being.  Scared by the picture of the multi-tasking mother, many younger women are now delaying marriage and motherhood or even completely opting out. This has led to a concerning decline in fertility rates that could risk us aging before we prosper as a nation.

Reversing this trend requires rethinking public policies, creating supportive workplace environments, and shifting societal norms, because just like it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to raise a mother.

Here are essential steps stakeholders can take, which we have learned through our work to build a more gender-equal world- an “Equiverse.

Large-scale measures by government and policymakers

Legislate national care policies

It is well known that Indian women spend nearly ten times as much time a

s men on housework and caregiving. To reduce and redistribute unpaid care work, we need professional caregiving services that are affordable and accredited. National policies should facilitate access to community-based resources, making caregiving a collective responsibility rather than a gender-specific expectation. Bangladesh, for example, passed the Child Daycare Centre Act in 2021 in its 8th Five-Year Plan to recognize unpaid care work and proposed implementation guidelines for creches.

Legislate  mandatory paternity leave and parental leave policies

Current maternity leave policies can be detrimental to women’s careers. Employers hesitate to hire and groom women, especially young married women, due to the fear of them leaving after childbirth or having to backfill their positions during maternity leave. A more transformative approach would involve policies that benefit all parents, such as paid paternity-leave or comprehensive family leave, to normalize childcare as a shared responsibility.

Develop inclusive public infrastructure

We need to build caring cities, where infrastructure and services mainstream caregiving needs.  To enable pregnant women and women with children,  essential facilities such as lactation rooms and diaper-changing stations as well as escalators or elevators should be made available in all public spaces like malls and shopping areas; workplaces; railway, bus and metro stations. Safe, well-lit pathways and parks with wheelchair and stroller access must also become a standard.  

Introduce tax incentives for women’s re-entry into the workforce

Policy measures, such as tax incentives and targeted employment programs, can encourage and facilitate women’s re-entry into the workforce after career breaks. For instance, the Malaysian Government gives individual tax exemptions of up to 12 months to women who return to work and also has in place a Career Comeback programme to incentivise employers to recruit and retain women who have been on career breaks. Self-employment being an attractive option for mothers wanting “on-ramp” after a break, the Government could enable them with programs like Russia’s “Mom Entrepreneur” educational program that develops entrepreneurship capacity for women with children or on maternity leave.

Enabling initiatives to build caring organisations

Incorporate flexibility into workplace cultures

 Organisations must go beyond merely “gifting” women flexible work policies. To prevent mothers from exiting the workforce and to support both men and women in achieving work-life balance, it is necessary to bring a complete shift in organizational mindsets towards genuine flexibility in work models that does not penalise those who avail the flexibilities or clock-in less face time. Given the advances in technology, flexibility should encompass both time and location.

Provide return-to-work support for both mothers and fathers

When women quit the workforce after having children, it often derails their dreams and career prospects.  However, employers must think of women’s work with a long term lens, in which a 3–4 years break should not become a blow to their careers. Fathers must also be enabled to take childcare breaks and to return to work. Any career break to raise a child, whether by men or women, needs to be addressed with empathy and support.

Ed-tech platforms can enable new mothers or fathers, whoever takes a break for child care, to re-skill online when looking to make a come back. In addition, organizations should keep in touch with parents during long maternity or paternity leave and offer transition coaching and dedicated programs to help them reintegrate into their careers post-break.  They should also create unbiased and fast-tracked career paths to enable employees returning from breaks to catch up to the deserved level of remuneration and positions. 

Provide caregiving infrastructure for all employees

Organisations must provide access to safe and high quality creche facilities to all new parents. Today even the most modern organization and international corporate houses fail to provide access to creche facilities. Many provide it only for the female employees and that enhances the stereotype that child rearing is mothers’ responsibility only.

Societal measures to enable equal sharing of domestic responsibilities

Encouraging men to equally participate in unpaid care and household chores is essential for women to have equal access to work, wealth and wellbeing. This includes fostering mindsets that support partnership at home and enhancing support structures that help fathers become more active caregivers. While things are changing for the new generation, they are not changing fast enough. Each of us has a role to play in accelerating this change. Besides, supportive policies, infrastructure and education, media and icons can play a vital role in changing mindset and breaking the patriarchal norms and stereotypical roles of parents. Without proactive measures, it has been estimated that it will take at least 92 years to achieve equality in unpaid care work between men and women.  

By taking these actions, we can create a village that truly supports and empowers mothers, leading to a more equitable and prosperous society.