International Women’s Day: work-life balance for all!

8 March 2018 // Today we join the celebration of the International Women’s Day! This year, we focus on supporting the EU Work Life Balance Directive as one of the solutions to empower women and contribute to gender equality.

Specifically, women with disabilities experience double disadvantages, those associated with gender as well as disability. For instance, analysis of the World Health Survey results for 51 countries gives employment rates of 52.8% for men with disability and 19.6% for women with disability, compared with 64.9% for non-disabled men, and 29.9% for non-disabled women.

Among the causes of this gap in employment between men and women (with or without disabilities) are the inequalities with regard to parental leave, inadequate paternity leave, and the difficulties that women face with combining work and care once they have children. This is especially hard for families with children with disabilities, who may need more attention and special care. For these families, having adequate days of paid leave and the right to flexible working arrangements are key to achieving the best quality of life and care for their children. This is why the Work-Life Balance directive needs to be adopted and implemented as soon as possible to allow parents and carers to better reconcile work and family life.

IF calls on everyone to join the #IwantWorkLifeBalance campaign, launched by COFACE Families Europe in October 2017. Please check out the information here and help us to achieve a real positive change for women with disabilities and mothers with children with disabilities.

Resources:

2011 World Report on Disability
Issue brief: Making the SDGs count for women and girls with disabilities