- Tíðindi, mentan og ítróttur
The government is planning to offer subsidies to parents who choose to look after their children at home rather than sending them to a daycare centre – the co-called ‘money follows the child’ plan.
This is not advisable, especially not at a time with record-low unemployment, as it encourages people to leave their jobs to go home and look after their children, argues the economic council in its autumn report.
Such a plan is particularly unwise, argues the council, considering that the current shortage of qualified staff in hospitals, daycare centres and social services will continue to grow as the challenges of an ageing demographic become a reality.
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This view is backed up by a coalition of some of the largest trade unions in the country, which goes as far as calling the government’s plan a disaster for Faroese society.
A ‘money follows the child’ system would be particularly problematic for women, argue the unions, as it would result in lower wages, lower pension savings and less work experience for women, who already lag far behind men in these areas as it is now.
One of the unions criticising the plan is the Pedagogue Union, whose chairman, Jógvan Philbrow, says:
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“If more women stay out of the labour market, the so-called ‘women’s jobs’ will be hit hardest,” he says.
“We should work towards improving work and family balance, and parents should be allowed to look after their children at home, but this is not the right way to go about it.”
Philbrow suggests a shorter work week and a general review of the parental leave system as alternative solutions.
Read the Faroese versions of this article here and here.
More Faroese News in English.
