Who looks after the children when the mothers work?

Emmanuel Macron announced a series of pro-birth measures in January 2024, designed to implement the “demographic rearmament” of France. Setting political rhetoric aside, it is important to give some consideration to the question of responsibility for the care of these additional children.

France’s efforts towards demographic rebalancing run in opposition to the country’s wish to establish gender equality. As women generally carry most of the burden of raising children, adding to their parenting responsibilities can be detrimental to women’s professional advancement.

Faced with this reality, women's options for reconciling work and family life are crucial. Careers can be held back by long-term parental leave, which can also make it more difficult to return to work.  Also, a reduction in working hours can impact opportunities for promotion and professional development and often results in a drop in income. Childcare is clearly a valuable means of supporting women's career development without any major interruptions caused by motherhood. 

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Dialogues économiques is a digital magazine published by the Aix-Marseille School of Economics (AMU, CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Méditerranée) A bridge between academic research and society, Dialogues économiques provides all citizens with the keys to economic reasoning. Articles are published every two weeks.

Employment opportunities for working mothers linked to availability of childcare

The labour market for mothers is closely linked to the availability of childcare, as highlighted by economists Mathieu Lefebvre, Laurène Thil and Laté A. Lawson in their article "An Empirical Assessment of the Drivers of Formal and Informal Childcare Demand in European Countries", published in 2023 in the journal Social Indicators Research.

The scientific literature has already identified the link between women's employment (and career development) and the availability, accessibility and quality of childcare. Without childcare options which are accessible in terms of working hours or affordability, mothers may be obliged to work part-time, accept less demanding jobs, or even withdraw from the job market entirely. This is to the detriment of their career progression and their personal economic well-being, as well as that of their families. One of the difficulties of researching in this field is comparing situations between different countries, due to discrepancies in cultural, social, and economic conditions.