A labour market without women, our lives without children?

Is this the reality we are going to have to get used to? Women who are housewives or work in subsistence agriculture? Women who choose not to become mothers because that inevitably means giving up a career/a profession?

NO! I don’t think that this is the reality that we have to accept. But we have to talk about it, and I agree with a sociologist and good friend: ‘First of all, women have to talk about it!’ It is the personal experiences that come with all the turmoil that parents, friends, husband/partner are sometimes unaware of.

On work in our lives

Through my profession, I see the labour market and the impact that work has on us. I make the case that work is an important element of our existence in every context. Work puts us in situations where we can learn consciously, but also through imitation and behaviour modelling. At one point in the public discourse, I had the feeling that the trend was towards work avoidance, towards those who argue that you don’t need to go to school or work to make money. Let’s fight them and choose healthy role models! Work offers so much more.

We need work to feel a sense of achievement, to keep learning, to keep pace with society, with change and with technological development, to maintain our self-confidence in what we can do, to cultivate our autonomy, to put ourselves in a position where we can choose for ourselves and are not subject to the constraints of other people/institutions, etc. It is work that gives us a sense of purpose in life, especially when some of our roles in our current lives are diminishing – for example, if you are a parent but the children have grown up and no longer need your daily parental guidance, or if you no longer manage employees because your company has closed or you have retired. When you no longer have the same active role in society, work, whether voluntary or paid, helps you rebuild. It is the tool we use to learn to pick ourselves up when we are down, to look with pride at what we have done, but also with confidence in the future. And this applies to each and every one of us!

Let me now return to the role of work in women’s lives, starting with a picture of present-day Romania in figures.

According to data published by the National Institute of Statistics (INSSE), the picture of the employed population in Romania, taking into account data from the end of 2023, is as follows:

Figure 2. Distribution of the population aged 15 and over by labour participation, by gender and age group, in 2023

Employed persons                            Unemployed persons                         Inactive persons

In Romania, girls and boys start out with a certain equality at birth, but the influence of social norms and pressures in various activities and in society only becomes apparent as the child grows up and takes on a role in society.

The study conducted by the FILIA Centre, ‘Caring for Democracy, Women’s Political Interests in 2024’, highlights some important aspects of women’s lives in our society.

1. We have the traditional patriarchal role model, in which the woman takes care of the housework (food preparation, cleaning, washing dishes and clothes, ironing) and the children, while the man may take on other household tasks (repairs, agricultural work and chopping wood). With urbanisation, agricultural activities and wood chopping have disappeared, but that does not always mean that men take on other household tasks. ‘Within couples, there are small but statistically significant differences depending on the level of education of the woman, with more tasks being taken on by the partner if the woman has a higher education,’ according to the study by the Filia Centre.
2. When it comes to setting their agendas, women aged 18 to 44 prioritise education, health and work, with priorities also being set according to the phase of life. In the 18-29 age group, education and securing a job through acquired skills are at the forefront, while in the 30-44 age group, health is the top priority – the period during which some women decide to become mothers. Childbirth is therefore a time when the quality of healthcare is keenly felt, with all the worries about one’s own health and that of the baby. (see table below, source: study by the Filia Centre, 2024)

The birth of a first child is an important moment. Primarily, it is about choosing the right time, and the study by the Association of Independent Midwives (Asociația Moașelor Independente – AMI) shows what choices a woman has when planning her reproductive life, what tools she can use and what deficiencies the healthcare system has in this area. AMI also published the 2024 Study of Birth Experiences in Romanian Hospitals – a report that helps us understand what obstetric violence means, its impact on mothers, and also includes recommendations for accessing women- and baby-friendly care. Such studies help us to understand the reality in which women live. I invite you to take a look at it, because some aspects are difficult to take in, but it is important to know about them.

Demographics and birth rate

An alarming topic that will have a strong impact on the economy is demographics! The Draghi report speaks of demographic risks: Europe is ageing and depopulating, and will therefore become less competitive. As a result, we will have fewer workers, taxpayers, tenants, property buyers, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors and ultimately consumers and voters.

Many studies have tried to determine why birth rates have been declining worldwide for decades, with almost all countries below the replacement level of 2.1 births/woman, except for sub-Saharan African countries (where they have declined from 6.8 to 4.3 births/woman). In 1994, the economist Lant Pritchett discovered the single strongest national predictor of fertility ever uncovered. This crucial factor turned out to be quite simple: WHAT WOMEN WANT! This highlights the human factor, the desire of women, as the factor that determines the fertility behaviour of a country.

What do women want to opt for motherhood?

In both developed and developing countries, a negative correlation was found between the level of education of women and the number of children. Initially, it was assumed that, given the total cost of raising a child, there would be a trade-off – fewer children in favour of better quality education. In the US, women who had spent more than 16 years in education had the fewest children in 1980, but this pattern no longer applies in 2019.

Matthias Doepke, a German economist, professor of economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and professor of economic history at Northwestern University, is coordinating a series of studies that show that women want to work and that the scenario in which they give up work/career/job to raise children is no longer the norm, but the exception.

Women want to be able to reconcile family and career, which means that men and women’s life plans are becoming more similar after a long period in which roles were traditionally divided, as mentioned at the beginning.

There are four factors that strongly influence the final decision to have children (Doepke et al., 2022).

1. Family policy. One important factor is the availability of childcare facilities such as daycare centres and nursery schools. It is precisely in order to be able to return to work that women want access to high-quality services of this kind at a price they can afford. In the USA, these services are mostly provided privately; in Europe, they are a service offered through the national education system, the quality of which is also determined by the amount of funding provided for early education in the national budget. Denmark and Sweden are two countries that allocate significant funds to this service, precisely to enable mothers to return to work. Accessibility of these services is an important factor, both in terms of price and availability of places. In Romania, it is difficult to find a place in a state-run daycare nursery, especially in cities, while rural areas are the most affected by the lack of daycare nurseries and nursery schools. Other family-related factors include parental leave – how it is divided between parents, the fee policy and the number of hours the child can spend in daycare or at school – as well as the after-school programme.
2. A cooperative, committed father sees himself as part of his children’s educational and developmental concept. The traditional role of the father, who provides material resources but is not present in the lives of his children, is no longer relevant. Children need both a mother and a father. I am always happy to see more fathers going for walks with their children, some are very involved in their children’s daily routine, taking them to school, to training, to activities, and are in constant dialogue with them. It is no longer just about the father as a chauffeur.
   Japan is still one of the countries with a traditional division of labour within the family and had a birth rate of 1.35 births/woman in 2023.
3. Favourable social norms for the maternal role both at home and at work. How can this be operationalised? Let’s take a mother who leaves her child in the daycare nursery and goes to work because she is convinced that this is the right thing to do. Traditional role assignments are also associated with pressure from close or distant family members blaming the mother for returning to work. Added to this is society’s willingness to help mothers, even if it’s just in small gestures – lifting a stroller, smiling at a woman breastfeeding her baby, saying a kind word at a delicate or tense moment for a mother or father. But there is also the willingness of employers to support women who want to become mothers by hiring them and quickly reintegrating them when they so desire.
4. Friction in the labour market. One important factor is the need for women to have jobs to which they can return after their maternity leave. Italy and Spain are two countries with low birth rates, and one reason for this is the type of employment contracts, which are temporary or rigid in terms of working hours, combined with a childcare offer in daycare centres/nursery schools with a short programme that does not allow mothers to return to work. In Italy, the birth rate reached only 1.2 births/woman in 2023 (a downward trend over the last 15 years), while in Spain it was 1.19 births/woman.
   Romania abolished part-time employment contracts as of 1 August 2024 by over-taxing them at the same rate as a full-time contract. Within a month, almost 1 million part-time employment contracts had been terminated. This hit precisely that segment of mothers who not only provided an income but also care for their children, especially if the children were only cared for at daycare nurseries/nursery schools for limited hours. The government has pushed this segment of women into financial dependency. At the end of 2022, there were 0.3% part-time contracts in Romania, 45.1% in the Netherlands, 28.9% in Germany and the EU average was 17.6%.

On the responsibility of each and every one of us

Increasing the birth rate is a joint effort: 1. of the government through state programmes and measures with a direct effect and earmarked budgets to create a favourable economic and social environment; 2. of employers through openness towards this segment of employees – in the knowledge that they promote the existence of a society in which their company will still have customers, otherwise the depopulation will result in drastic adjustments, and 3. of the parents through the responsibility they take on by bringing children into the world, who they can educate wonderfully and harmoniously, who will fulfil their lives, sometimes beyond their limits, but who give them the unique opportunity to grow up under their care and supervision.

In Romania, which is about to hold parliamentary and presidential elections, we are talking about government programmes that sometimes give the impression that we are trying to keep people dependent on social services and benefits in order to keep them passive, instead of taking measures to activate them.

If this is the vision of some politicians, then it is up to us to recognise what we need: development programmes – qualification and retraining, adult education programmes, programmes and measures to facilitate and stimulate work that benefit employees and employers. Let us address both the supply side – those who offer work – job seekers/employees – and the demand side – those who represent the demand in the labour market – the employers.

For the 1.5 million women who lack financial independence, we need training, qualifications, employment contracts that allow them to work less than 8 hours; measures to encourage employers to offer part-time jobs to this group of women, more flexible working conditions; we need daycare nurseries and nursery schools, early education.

We need women in politics because they are the ones who know the reality of women and can advocate for policies that help them live balanced and dignified lives. Let me remind you that in the early 2000s, young mothers ‘benefited’ from a child-rearing benefit of 800 lei, regardless of their previous salary and social security contributions. This measure led many women to postpone or even abandon the idea of having children, as it was a form of „motherhood penalty”, especially for the group of working women with salaries above this amount. Since the 1st of January 2009, child-rearing benefit has amounted to 85% of the income earned in the last 12 months, a legislative initiative launched by Lavinia Șandru (who had become a mother and experienced this ‘penalty’) and supported by the government, through the then Labour Minister Mariana Câmpeanu, and later signed into law by President Traian Băsescu. However, we should not ignore the value of men who can become ambassadors for promoting women’s quality of life. A revealing example: the suffragette movement in England at the beginning of the 20th century, which fought for and achieved political rights for women, especially the right to vote, had Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party, as a strong supporter.

The political parties are primarily responsible for encouraging women to run for office on their lists, rather than taking credit for a 30 per cent quota for women who, due to their position at the bottom of the list, have little chance of being elected. True responsibility and ownership are demonstrated by applying the ‘one woman, one man’ system. The responsibility for voting lies with us, the voters.

I wrote this article with the philosophy of John Locke (1632-1704) in mind, who argued that humans enjoy liberty when they have ‘perfect freedom to regulate their actions and dispose of their possessions or persons as they see fit… without asking another person’s permission and without being dependent on his will,’ with liberty being a fundamental aspiration of all humans.

If, by reading this article, every woman and man becomes more aware of the reality of their lives and of what they can do to live a life in the spirit of freedom as defined by John Locke, then Romanian society is indeed taking a step forward. We are beginning to improve the social context in which we live today!

Dr. Claudia Indreica, psychologist, managing director of Psihoselect, with 23 years of experience in recruitment and candidate profiling, with clients in the manufacturing, IT, services, sales and distribution sectors, active member of Romanian Business Leaders and board member of DWNT. Leader of the working group – labour market – Romanian Business Leaders, with the aim of increasing competitiveness in the Romanian labour market, reducing tensions and skills deficits in order to create a high-performance work environment.

You can find the article published in Economedia here.