A bonus for shared parental leave? A bonus for education would be better
If the Chamber of Labor and the Federation of Austrian Trade Unions (ÖGB) have their way, there should be a bonus of 250 euros per person if they work 28 to 32 hours per week. The aim is for men to reduce their working hours with this incentive, giving them more time for family work. Even if the aim of sharing family work more equally is to be welcomed without reservation, the bonus is probably the wrong approach.
Austria has the second-highest rate of part-time employment among women in the European Union, which is primarily due to working mothers: over 60 percent of women with children in Austria work part-time. It is less clear to what extent part-time work is desired by mothers. On the one hand, data from the microcensus shows that the majority of mothers do not want to work longer hours (the reasons for this were not asked). On the other hand, according to surveys conducted by the European Commission, six out of ten Austrian mothers of preschool-age children cite compulsory childcare as the reason for their part-time employment. The reason given is the lack of sufficient availability of childcare places with corresponding opening hours.
The lack of availability of nursery places, for example, certainly has an influence on mothers' decision to reduce their working hours. There is a particular need to catch up and take action when it comes to places for under-threes. In 2019, only just under 23% of children up to the age of three in Austria were in formal childcare (full and part-time). In Denmark, the figure was many times higher at 66%, while in the Netherlands it was 65%. At 35%, the average of the 27 EU countries is now also above the Barcelona target and well above Austria's figure. With a rate of just eight percent, Austria ranks last in the European Union, particularly when it comes to childcare for young children of 30 hours or more.
Probably the most important reason for low rates is that there are hardly any places that are compatible with full-time employment. The VIF criteria - which measure whether a place is compatible with full-time employment, for example by offering lunch and opening for 9.5 hours a day - are only met in a few facilities: Not quite half of all facilities make it possible for both partners to work full-time, with this average being strongly boosted by Vienna. In Upper and Lower Austria, it is just one in five facilities. A comparison of the federal states shows a very strong correlation between the proportion of mothers working full-time and the length of opening hours of childcare facilities.
The goal must be that there is so much freedom of choice that both parents - if desired - can also work full-time. If they do not, the state should not necessarily intervene, although it would not hurt to point out the long-term consequences of this decision. On average, women receive a 40 percent lower pension - because they work part-time for a very long time.
The Chamber of Labor's proposal perpetuates this situation, which will lead to poverty in old age in the long term and also further jeopardize the sustainability of the pension system. It would be more expedient to create more flexibility in the parental leave models. For example, the possibility of combining the income-dependent and flat-rate models, which would encourage more men to take parental leave. Longer individual entitlements during parental leave - as is the case in Scandinavia, for example - would also do the trick.
After all, the expansion of childcare is not just about the labor market participation of mothers. The existing literature finds predominantly positive effects on children. In the short term, the introduction of more elementary education places increases children's development through better and more targeted support at home, such as reading. This has a positive impact on learning success. In addition, there are other positive effects such as an improvement in children's health and nutrition as well as a reduction in cases of abuse. In the long term, better participation in the labor market, less dependence on social welfare, higher educational mobility and lower inequality can be observed.
Research findings show that the use of early childhood education is socially stratified, meaning that low-income or low-skilled parents in particular are less likely to enrol their children in formal childcare services than financially better-off families. In terms of strengthening investment in education and educational mobility as well as improving mothers' participation in the labor market, the 250 euros per person would be better spent as an "education voucher" for elementary education - as is offered in Vienna, for example.
