New rights to care for public sector workers in Buenos Aires City

This post is written by Marisa Miodosky, senior advisor at Buenos Aires City Statistics Bureau.

• The problem: Research in 2017 revealed a significant inequality gap in the distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men in Buenos Aires City.
• Why it matters: Inequality in care affects women's autonomy, the well-being of families and children’s development.
• The solution: A new care leave scheme for Buenos Aires City government’s public servants. This case study examines the implementation and effectiveness of the scheme.

In 2017 Buenos Aires City government launched a powerful data tool to inform its Gender Equality Strategy: the gender indicator system. The tool enabled us to ask critical questions such as: What were the main gender inequality gaps? What could we do to narrow them? What have other countries done to address them? Did these interventions work? These interrogations and their answers guided us in early 2018 to design a new care leave scheme for Buenos Aires City government’s public servants.

The proper use of evidence in designing and evaluating reforms represents a robust method for scaling up successful policies.

An inequality gap

The gender indicator system showed that there was a significant inequality gap in the distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men: women cared 1.5 hours more than men each day, while the gap in caring for children was three hours greater each day for women. The data also indicated that there was a 13 points difference in the percentage of women and men participating in the labour market and that there were fewer women in decision-making positions both in the public and private sectors.

Moreover, our international literature review concluded that the maternity penalty was a major constraint in women's career development; it also revealed how a bunch of reformist countries had already changed their parental leave schemes with the aim of balancing care responsibilities and enabling women's progress in the labour market. The review was conclusive on the positive effects these reforms had on women's autonomy, families’ well-being and children’s development. It also warned us of the lack of success these reforms have when they are not accompanied by other interventions, aimed at encouraging fathers to take care leave.

Building an evidence-based case for change

Based on that information, with a group of technicians, we started to build the case for reform of the parental leave scheme for civil servants. For that purpose, we complemented the analysis with data from administrative records showing the number of births, adoptions and leave requests by public employees, then made projections and calculated the potential fiscal costs of extending the number of days for fathers. We reviewed the four legal frameworks governing the leave schemes for the different types of public servants (health, educators, security and administrative workers) and drafted an implementation plan. The first step of the plan was to seek buy-in from the chief of government, secondly, we reviewed existing bills and drafted a new one, then convinced members of parliament, and finally, we put in place the administrative procedures to request and approve care leave demands.

The implementation plan was completed successfully. The new bill was passed in October 2018 by unanimity and Buenos Aires City became the first subnational government in Argentina to implement an integral leave reform that included:

• The use of gender-inclusive language by changing the word ‘mother’ to ‘pregnant person’, recognising equal care rights for same-sex couples
• The extension from 10 to 30 days for non-pregnant caregivers
• The extension of same care rights to adoptive parents and the inclusion of a progressive leave scheme to care for adoptive children (more days for more children and more days for older children)
• The possibility to extend non-paid leave up to 120 days for non-pregnant people
• The possibility to exchange the final 30 days of leave from the pregnant person to the non-pregnant person when both parties worked for the Buenos Aires City Government
• The inclusion of care leave for the kindergarten adaptation period
• The addition of leave for gender-based violence reasons
• The extension of leave days for caring for people with care needs rather than sons.

Findings

Administrative records from public servant´s leave coming from the Comprehensive Administration System and Settlement (SIAL) for the period June 2018-2019 shows that seven months after the reform came into place, some 32.5 non-pregnant people (men and women) out of all requesting the regular leave, used the 30 days’ extended care leave. And one year later, with the reform fully in force, for every 100 licences for the birth of a child, 84.5 30-day extended licences were processed, showing a significant use of the new scheme. However, in 2020-2021 that figure went down to 43.2. We have two hypotheses for that decrease. On the one hand, we believe that by the time data was collected (June) most public servants were home working due to COVID-19, and they tended to delay the use of the new leave until the moment they should return to their office. Secondly, administrative records indicate that the most significant declines were recorded in professions related to hospitals (eg, doctors), who were most in demand due to the COVID-19 health emergency.

Findings from interviews conducted show that non-pregnant parents using the 30-days were extremely happy with the new right. They enjoyed being able to get involved more actively and found greater tranquillity in care tasks, enjoying this time to see their baby grow and socialise. Moreover, they valued the possibility of being able to accompany their partners at a time of great change for the family unit – especially when there were other children at home and during which the pregnant person goes through a process of recovery and needs more support.

Findings from men and non-pregnant women

Several men interviewed expressed their satisfaction with being involved in caring for babies during the first days. They emphasised how they changed their minds regarding the effort it takes to raise a child and how significant it was for them to be able to share caring responsibilities with their partners. In this sense, the new leave scheme contributed to deconstructing hegemonic models of masculinity.

The reform gave new rights to non-pregnant women caring for babies, too. For those who made use of the 30-day licence, the experience was particularly significant because it involved both a symbolic acknowledgement that they were others with rights to care, despite not being pregnant. Before the change in regulations, there were a series of bureaucratic obstacles when requesting paternity leave that applied to them due to a binary and heteronormative regulatory framework.

The new leave scheme contributed to deconstructing hegemonic models of masculinity.

Parents who went through adoption processes were also very satisfied with the equipartition of rights to care with those parents who biologically carried their child. However, there were differences between families who got foster care rapidly and those who had to wait longer and did not have the leave days to bond during the adoption process, as the leave is only granted once the adoption becomes effective. Here, therefore, is some room for improving the regulation.

SIAL data on sick family leave requests show evidence that women are the main care providers: 80% of these licences were used by women. The gap with men using these licences is particularly significant in the age ranges that go from 35 to 49, which coincides with the parenting periods of children, as well as those aged 50-54 that are associated with the care needs of the elderly. These differences show that there is another margin for improvement as care responsibilities remain unequal after babies are born.

A national rollout

In summary, qualitative and quantitative data show that the new leave scheme implemented by Buenos Aires City Government was successful. It enabled new rights that opened the path to a new culture of more even distribution of caring responsibilities within households. Given the federal political nature of Argentina, the reform only affected public employees of the City of Buenos Aires. However, it became a reference nationwide. Indeed, early in May 2022, the national executive power sent a bill to the national congress that proposes a very similar leave scheme for every Argentine worker. Previously, some private companies copied the BA City administration scheme. Undoubtedly, the proper use of evidence in designing and evaluating reforms represents a robust method for scaling up successful policies.

This article builds on the findings of a larger paper: ‘On the path of gender equality. Analysis of the implementation of the new family leave regime for public administration personnel.’

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