Care Policies in Paraguay. Brief Analysis of the Maternity Leave, its relationship with the Labor Market and the Distribution of Care Work

• Main Authors: Dahiana Ayala Alfonso, Cinthia Villamayor Arellano
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Asunción 2017-12-01
• Series: Población y Desarrollo
• Subjects: Reproductive Economy; Female Work; Family Policy
• Online Access: http://scielo.iics.una.py/pdf/pdfce/v23n45/2076-054X-pdfce-23-45-00025.pdf

Paraguay, like other countries in the region, is part of a scheme of services and services of "stratified universalism" (Filgueira, 1997): access to different types of social protection benefits is determined by the type of insertion of workers to the labor market. This model has to face new risks such as the increase of unemployment, occupational instability, informality and labor precariousness and challenges in relation to the incorporation of women into the labor market. In this context, there is a significant inequity in access to social protection between formal workers and informal workers and the unemployed. Maternity leave is a clear example of the benefits of social protection, which show the asymmetries in access that arise from the determinants of the labor market. First, these licenses are essential for child development. Secondly, the differences in length between maternity and paternity leave contribute to gender discrimination in the labor market. Third, they are a paradigmatic example of the policies needed to reconcile productive and reproductive lives. In the last decade the rate of activity of women has increased considerably, and when considering a variant as "household chores" it can be noted that women's activity rates vary from 60.1% to 80.5% while that of men is maintained without variant, which can be inferred that domestic activities are almost exclusively developed by women.