New Laws in India Target Mothers' Workplace Equality, Leave Out Fathers

Several decades ago, urban primary schoolers grew up, through their textbooks, on a staple diet of a "normal" family as one where the father was the one who worked to earn and the mother stayed at home to look after the family - cooking, cleaning and (if she was adequately educated) helping children with the home assignments. Decades later, the image of a perfect mother is one who balances her responsibilities at home with her profession; the super-mum who makes path-breaking financial decisions at work, equally important personal decisions at home, looks like a supermodel and cooks like a super chef, the latter continuing to be her most important job and satisfying accomplishment.

While cosmopolitan India has seen women negotiate the tight spaces between working professional and home-maker for themselves - depending on what works best for them, it really is the smaller towns and cities, aspiring metros, or rural parts of the country that are still light years away from urbane India, where women struggle to pay the price for the education they fight for and the discrimination they fight against. These are parts of the country where stereotypical images continue to be too rigid to deconstruct and traditional responsibilities saddled with more modern imagery and demands ensure that women constantly struggle to balance the two.

Women rejoining work after a prolonged maternity leave are known to stagnate or lose out professionally when compared to other colleagues. Often they are ignored when it comes to assigning more challenging tasks simply on the assumption that if you are not already married you would be soon and would immediately jump into the process of starting and then raising a family.

The Indian government recently decided to give women in government service paid child care leave for two years. The provision, implemented since September 1, 2008, allows leave for the entire service period and can be availed in a combination of spells, over and above the regular leave to which an employee is entitled. More importantly, it will not affect seniority and regular promotions. In government service, where senior appointments are often decided by a matter of seniority which could amount to barely a few days apart between contending aspirants, women lose out due to the leave availed during their pregnancies since the number of workdays is counted while determining seniority.

Established social roles and familial pressures ensure that education has often not been a guarantee for a woman to be able to make decisions regarding their own fertility - when and how many children she wants. The government's earlier two child policy, which was mandatory for government employees, has also witnessed this group of professionals as offenders in sex selective abortions since promotions were guided by who violated or adhered to the two child norm. From forced sterilization in the seventies the two-child policy shifted to disincentives for government employees who had more than two children. The benefits (and underlying pressure) of having a small family were not always accompanied by a corresponding sensitization towards rearing a girl child. The child care provision too continues to be guided by an encouragement for smaller families. The new leave regime for women means that during their stint with the government, they can avail of this paid leave for as much as three years, provided it is used for the two oldest children. Besides, even if a woman has only one child, she can take the two-year leave. It is a move that has been welcomed by many.

But what about women in the private sector?

Many are asking for its extension to the private sector which in more recent years has seen a rise in the employment opportunities available to women. Those pushing to adopt these policies in the private sector also point out that the sector has fewer systems in place protecting women employees from gender-based exploitation. The disproportionate ratio of few jobs and more job-seekers coupled with market competitiveness ensures that most women lose professionally on returning from even the mandatory 90 day maternity leave. Women in the private sector are often hard-pressed for such leave beyond the maternity break (rarely beyond 90 days), besides the regular quota of earned, casual and medical leave. Given that women already suffer from this bias, the fear expressed by some that it may lead to a further entrenchment of this gender bias and negatively impact women's career prospects and in fact even directly impact their recruitment might not appear so far-fetched.

The government, on the other hand, argues that the decision will help women balance home and office responsibilities -- a clear indication of its own unwillingness to interfere in established social roles of women. So, the government finds it easier to introduce provisions hinged on these established notions. A working woman would now get government assistance in balancing her role of a good mother/wife with that of a professional. With men comprising seventy percent of the work force, in most sectors, the resentment is bound to show. In government services like the armed forces women are already accused of getting away with softer assignments and priority with regard to leave most of the time. Women were not allowed permanent commission in the armed forces - except in the medical corps - (a practice that is to change prospectively by the year 2015) which means they do not enjoy the perks that a regular permanent employee of the armed forces enjoys. In the context of other government departments an extension of the same argument and disguised resentment is bound to add on additional work burden on other employees with such prolonged absences of women employees.

Bringing up baby, changing roles

But one of the more crucial concerns is surrounding the perception that women alone are saddled with the responsibility of bringing up the children. While being sensitive towards the demands on a woman with relation to child rearing, the notification does little to change the notion of child rearing being a shared responsibility. It puts the burden of care-giving completely on the women and does little to change the traditional roles of men as breadwinners to that of care-givers. Urban couples increasingly share responsibilities, but by giving all the benefits to the women the government is doing little to change the mindset that child care is solely the woman's responsibility. Moreover, families that have made the transition to shared responsibilities are the ones who will either suffer from this provision or shift back to the more stereotypical division of labor between spouses as the provision literally places the responsibility of childcare on women.

A part of the child care leave can be used to take care of a sick child, again suggesting that only women are equipped to take care of their sick children. Why is the mother the only person responsible for teaching or taking care during illness, if the father is also willing to perform similar duties?

Shifting roles require rules that benefit that shift. Fifteen days of paternity leave stands out in stark contrast to three years for the woman, revealing the role a father plays/is expected to play in the actual process of nurturing. A more gendered approach is required and child care leave should be extended to both parents with either of them taking the leave to share childcare responsibilities.

And yet, the new leave regime is bound to make government jobs more woman friendly and attractive not only for women but also for nuclear families because of the underlying assurance that, at least, the mother can be with the child when needed. It will also benefit women in most parts of the country where they continue to struggle to maintain a balance between professional and domestic commitments from within the demands of rigid, stereotyped roles. And more crucially, it will benefit single mothers the most, especially in light of recent instances of single mothers losing the custody of their children by virtue of being working professionals as the court found them incapable of taking care of the child. But correspondingly it also throws up the issue of single fatherhood as the law fails to take into account single fathers who also have child care responsibilities. Child care leave is bound to be a tricky issue at a time when the pace of change in Indian society is far from homogenous. Different parts of the country with virtually different time zones as far as the traditional gender imbalanced, division of roles is concerned. It is in this context of contesting changes that the actual implementation of the law and its impact on the lives of women both in the professional and domestic sphere will become crucial.