Serbian Republic Statistical Office

1. Reconciliation of work and family life Serbian Republic Statistical Office www.stat.gov.rs stat@stat.gov.rs

2. Introduction • Economic globalisation, rapid technological progress, and population ageing, combined with increased employment rates among women, call for organisational changes and increased flexibility, providing at the same time for the labour force and employees’ needs • Therefore,reconciliation of work and free time or carrier and family, became an increasingly important issue for the EU and national policies, and collective bargaining

3. The feminist movements are putting increasing pressures on defining gender roles in the family and allocation of family duties • The term “Reconciliation of work and family life“,which was introduced after a long political debate, is now used even more frequently in employment policy than in the gender equality debates

4. In the EU, this survey was conducted in 2005, and it showed great differences and inequalities between genders, which was confirmed also by numerous other studies (gender pay gap, segregation, etc.), showing that women sacrificed their work livesfor the role of housewives and taking care of their families.

5. Survey objectives: • Identify number of individuals who are child and/or elderly caretakers • Analyse the impacts of child and elderly care on the labour market • Define the issues relating to the inadequate number of care centers for these persons • Analyse the level of flexibility offered at work, impacting reconciliation of work and family life • Assess to which extent individuals take leave from work for child and/or elderly care www.stat.gov.rs stat@stat.gov.rs

6. The issues relating to reconciliation of family and work life are increasingly important in the EU member countries, and the perspective EU member countries • The task is to adopt effective policy measures to ensure reconciliation of family and work life • The measures are necessary to increase the participation of women in the labour market • In addition, there is a need to increase labour market productivity as soon as possible www.stat.gov.rs stat@stat.gov.rs

7. The period of life related to child care and carrier development is also called the ‘rush hour’ stage • To increase productivity, it is necessary to ensure that the working conditions are as favourable for employees as possible • Successful reconciliation of family and work life reduces the risk of employee burn out. • These are just some of the arguments for the necessity of adequate reconciliation of the employees’ family and work lives. www.stat.gov.rs stat@stat.gov.rs

8. Additional modules in LFS are a good tool for monitoring of efficiency of the measures that are implemented • Labour market participation and the number of working hours that an employee is putting in or wishes to work, as the main efficiency indicators, are monitored under the Labour Force Survey. • Therefore, additional modules such as this one relating to work aspects vs. family life present alternative ways for the collection of data on labour market conditions www.stat.gov.rs stat@stat.gov.rs

9. Traditional measures for achieving reconciliation of family and work life include: • Maternity leave • Child care leave (sick leave) The improvement of working conditions requires also the introduction of innovative measures such as: • Flexible working time • Flexible work arrangements (part time job, home working, etc.)

10. The Survey was conducted in cooperation between RSO and Eurostat, combined with the main LFS survey, as an additional module, in the period between 26 April and 9 May • The target group includes persons 15 to 64 years of age who fulfill one of the following conditions: • They have at least one child (their own or their spouse’s) under the age of 14 years, living in the same household • They take care on a regular basis of their child or their partner’s child not living in the same household, or of any child under the age of 14 years, irrespective if the child lives in the same household or not • They take care on a regular basis of friends or relatives after the age of 15 years, who are in need of their care

11. The Survey focuses on individuals • Data collection method implies face-to-face and phone interviews Instruments: • Individual questionnaire to be filled in, and • Interviewer guidelines Implementation target: • Approximately 3000 individuals

12. Reconciliation of Family and Work Life Questionnaire comprises six sections: • The first section includes questions pertaining to the interviewee’s and/or his/her partner’s children under the age of 14 years, living in the same household. • The second section includes questions pertaining to the interviewee’s and/or his/her partner’s children under the age of 14 years, living in the same household in case the usual childcare services are not available, e.g. in case the caretaker is sick, on vacation, etc.

13. The third section includes questions pertaining to taking care of friends or relatives after 15 years of age, not living in the same household. • The fourth section includes questions pertaining to the interviewee’s employment and reconciliation of work obligations and family situations (e.g. illness, accident or surgery on a family member, funeral in the family, hospitals closed due to epidemics, accidents at home, etc.).

14. The fifth section includes questions pertaining to child care leave, for children under 8 years, living in the same household • The fifth section includes questions pertaining to the interviewee, his/her household, and migrations.

15. Outputs: • Obtainindicators such as: - Percentage of individuals using child care services - Percentage of individuals who wish to work from home or part time and have more time for family life - Detailed analysis of each variable in accordance with different characteristics – sex, age, educational level, etc.

16. Survey implementation difficulties: • The module focuses on individuals, while some of the questions are relevant for the whole household, which complicates the questionnaire design