Until October 2020, the nurseries of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) did not receive the daughters and sons of affiliated parents. The impediment, which lasted more than half a century, was based on the stereotype of women solely responsible for care. Therefore, in the world of work only they needed the support. That has also been the logic so that men do not have more than five days of paternity leave in the Federal Labor Law (LFT)
Until now, public policies in Mexico have been built under a separate vision of working and reproductive life and changing that idea is not being easy. Legislature after legislature, Congressional Labor commissions receive initiatives to expand paid leave for working parents, but they remain in the freezer.
In the first months of the LXV legislature there are already at least two proposals in the Chamber of Deputies. The first, from the deputy Melissa Estefanía Vargas (PRI), proposes that the paid leave be 45 days. The second, by Manuel Baldenebro (Morena), president of the Labor commission, proposes that it be 60 consecutive days.
In the LXIV Legislature, the Senate Labor Committee approved two opinions in the matter, but they did not reach the plenary session. The first, in October 2019, extended paid leave to 15 days. The second, in November 2020, proposed four weeks.
The fragmented view of the work and family dimension It has generated gender inequality, “labor exploitation, oppression and human rights violations,” says the report The Road to Reproductive Justice: A Decade of Progress and Pending, published by the Information Group on Chosen Reproduction (GIRE).
“It seems that these two facets can be divided, when we need to talk about a conciliation of both,” says Melissa Ayala, Coordinator of Documentation and Litigation of Cases at GIRE. The covid-19 pandemic has made it very clear how the care work and people should be at the center of the conversation, he adds.
The role of business
Mexico is one of the countries with the paternity leave shortest in Latin America. In Venezuela, Paraguay and, recently, Colombia, is where the most progress has been made, there fathers can be absent for 14 days with pay for childbirth or adoption.
Our country is in the group of those who have achieved just five days. It shares a place with Chile, Brazil and Nicaragua. Recently, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), Arturo Zaldívar, announced that the workers of the Federal Judicial Power will have paid paternity leave for three months.
“In my work we have had inherited licenses two weeks, but it is on paper ”, says Alfonso Medina. She has been working in a small juice factory for 10 years and when her daughter was born, five years ago, she preferred not to take leave. “It’s frowned upon, they call you lazy, like they think our place is here. The bosses put a lot of obstacles to let you go and when you come back it goes bad for you ”.
Before him, two of his companions had applied for permission. One of them was denied on the pretext that there were no personnel, the worker did not know that he had the right to at least five days. The other insisted, but when he returned “the boss grabbed her against him, and everything he did was wrong. It took a long time for him to forget it ”.
To address the issue, says Melissa Ayala, you have to start from the sexual division of labor. The tasks are distributed based on “preconceptions based on the sex assigned to the people. Women, then, are the ones in charge or the ones most responsible for the care of their children ”.
For this reason, many men do not demand or do not take advantage of licenses, he points out. “The regulatory changes they must be accompanied by society, it is useless if they are achieved without that relationship ”. And companies must comply with what the law establishes and modify the culture within so that employees can freely exercise their rights, he adds.
Who pays for the permits?
The licenses for men and women “They are an important policy to recognize the burden of care work, which is generally unpaid and is predominantly performed by women,” stated in the report Maternity and paternity in the workplace in Latin America and the Caribbean, prepared by Unicef .
However, they are usually linked to the formal sector. In Mexico, according to the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), while more than 14 million men work in formality, the proportion of women in this line is almost 8.9 million. This is another reason to expand parental leave, because less often they have access to paid care leaves.
“We have to think about how to support the regulation to move forward,” says Melissa Ayala. “From GIRE we have questioned how these permits are going to be financed.” Because in the case of women there is a IMSS contribution, but the cost of paternity leave is borne by employers. “It is important that this is modified and the State also contributes, perhaps this way it will be easier to increase the number of weeks.”
The benefits of doing so would extend to society. According to the UNICEF report, families in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with “more generous” licenses have a lower risk of poverty.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx