Workplaces already tend to penalise women who choose to work fewer hours or need more flexibility, and that, too, is proving to be exacerbated in the pandemic. Now the pandemic — and its hobbling of schools and child care providers — is taking that away, too, piling pressure on working mothers, like me. Around the world, working women are facing brutally hard choices about whether to stay home if they haven’t already been laid off. The Israeli government provides free early childhood education from age 3 and means-tested day care for many babies and younger toddlers. By contrast, Sweden, which heavily subsidises day care and has one of the highest rates of female labour participation in the developed world, has kept schools and day care centres open throughout the pandemic.

Source: bd News24 September 27, 2020 06:22 UTC