Leveraging social protection systems to support parents to provide the best care for their children
Project properties
GLO/22/11/NES Americas Mexico In progress This project is part of the Global Flagship Programme on Building Social Protection Floors for All
Description
ILO and Nestlé have joined forces to support the development of national public social protection systems that provide adequate support to families with children. In particular, maternity and parental benefits provide financial support during and after pregnancy as well as the time taken off to look after their children while paternal benefits allocated to fathers also encourages shared parenting. Advocacy around the need for social protection that supports parents and children contributes to creating a supportive environment for parents, awareness on the benefits and return on investment of social protection. Awareness of their entitlements also allows parents to access their benefits, especially in a context where a legal framework exist but where compliance is poor. Finally, availability of childcare is also important to support the working life of parents. In Mexico, the road to parental co-responsibility and recognition of caregiving and caregivers and care workers is still long where despite significant progress, levels of shared family responsibilities remain low. It is estimated that 70 per cent of Mexican mothers do not have a stable formal job. This demonstrates the high price paid by Mexican women in the labour market for having to reconcile work with caregiving tasks. The maternity benefits are provided for 14 weeks through the contributory social security system while paternity leave is limited to five days and paid by the employer. Despite growing interest in the issue and the country's recent efforts, it is estimated that in 2018, only around 13% of births were covered by the maternity scheme, against a near-zero rate for paternity schemes. The proposed project, ‘Leveraging social protection to support parents to provide the best care for their children’ will increase awareness on the important role of social protection to support parents and caregivers. Mexican workers and employers as well as families in general will benefit from improved policy frameworks that respond to their need while at global level, lessons learned from the project are expected to inform similar policy developments ongoing in other countries. At the end of the project, it is expected that a better understanding of the situation of childcare will be achieved through a diagnostic that will provide a detailed mapping of the design, institutional set-up and coverage of childcare policies at the national level, and at the sub-national level if data availability allows. This diagnostic will be critical to identify gaps and challenges, and will serve as a key input to support the rest of the Project's components and activities. The subsequent stages of the Project, will seek to make visible the gaps identified in the diagnosis, as well as to raise awareness in Mexican society about the need and benefits of addressing the problem. Among other results, the project will attempt to create an institutional framework to ensure the sustainability of the project in the medium and long term, both through the creation of a permanent body for social dialogue, preferably endowed with resources (precise institutional configuration to be defined throughout the project), and through the production of a national care policy.SDG
Goals
- End poverty in all its forms everywhere
- Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
- Reduce inequality within and among countries
Time
23.07.2022 - 31.08.2024
Budget
138,534 / 268,174
Development Cooperation