Returning Work-life Balance to Augment Women Contributions
Despite Vietnam’s progression towards equal female participation in the workforce, the division of domestic labour in the family remains broadly unchanged. Women who work for the same duration as their husbands or partners and contribute to the financial status of the family are expected to raise children, care for elderly family members, and take care of household responsibilities. Work-life balance is a struggle faced by more women than men for this reason, particularly for working mothers who do not have nannies, who have to juggle their work, housework, and raising children.
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According to a 2021
report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), women spend an average
of 20.2 hours per week on domestic work, including cleaning the house, washing
clothes, cooking and shopping for the family, family care, and childcare. Meanwhile,
men spent only 10.7 hours on these tasks – and close to one-fifth of men did
not spend any time on these activities at all.
Societal norms
suggesting that it is a woman’s role to care for children and do the housework
is holding back half the workforce in Vietnam. The economic growth that women
in the workforce have brought to Vietnam is unmistakable, and by unloading some
of these responsibilities assigned to women to men, Vietnam’s economy would
continue to grow. The only true way to address imbalances is by changing the
mindsets of both Vietnamese men and women, and be re-examining what are deemed
traditional roles for women that are supported by the social norms.
Homemakers and breadwinners
The reason work-life
balance is predominately a “women’s issue” is due societal norms that dictate
that women’s role is to be caregivers or homemakers while men are the
“breadwinners”. Though now almost an equal number of women as men join the
workforce in Vietnam, women are also expected to remain caregivers whilst also
balancing their careers and also be the breadwinners. This presents an obvious
double burden that is often gone unnoticed and unacknowledged.
Seeing as there is a
gender imbalance and societal pressures dictating that woman should raise
children and do the housework, it is an issue that must be addressed by both
women and men. Though many men may be unaware of their compliance in creating
double burden for the women in their lives, they should reconsider their
participation in sharing domestic duties equally.
The more men feel free
saying they do not care about household chores or that women are somehow
naturally better at cleaning or raising children, the longer these gender
imbalances will remain.
Equal participation
between partners in raising children and housework will be beneficial to family
and work life.
The motherhood penalty
The gender stereotype
that women are caregivers translates into the expectation that the mother will
sacrifice more of their career than her male counterpart to raise children.
Coined as the
“maternal wall bias” by Joan C. Williams, a professor at the University of
California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, due to this
stereotype, women of child bearing age are often viewed as less desirable hires
or candidates in key corporate or management positions, as employers fear that
they may get pregnant and drop their careers. Essentially, women are penalised
for making the personal choice to become a mother.
Mothers or aspiring
mothers are discriminated against, because societal norms expect women to raise
their children rather than balance motherhood and a career. However, this sort
of discrimination is not faced by new fathers. In fact, research has found that
people are more sympathetic towards fathers than mothers in the workplace and
that mothers or pregnant women are less committed to their jobs.
Rejoining the workforce
Research has shown
that women who take maternity leave are less likely to be promoted, receive a
pay raise once their leave is over or move into management. Not only that, but
women who take longer leaves are often seen as less committed to their jobs
than those who take shorter leaves. This demonstrates the trade-off many
mothers face as they maintain their professional career whilst also raising and
caring for their children.
Tam Huynh a manager at
Robert Walters expressed that despite the strong support received from company
management, it took her an additional six months to readjust to work after her
six-month maternity leave. Being promoted mere months before giving birth
(which is unusual in Vietnamese work environments), she shared about how
difficult it was balancing management responsibilities with her new role as a
mother, which often forced her to give up external company activities and extra
work – not out of a lack of commitment but time constraints.
Though Robert Walters
company has a very supportive and positive workplace culture that incorporates
diversity and inclusion principles, women returning from maternity leave still
face many challenges, reflecting the inherent discriminatory nature of
well-meaning maternity leave policies that inadvertently penalise working women
faced having children.
At the very least,
these challenges should be acknowledged by family members who can provide
essential support by sharing these new responsibilities placed on women and
minimise their “double burden”.
When these
responsibilities are shared by members of the family (especially men) a
stronger sense of empathy and understanding will be gained, promoting the
reconstruction of outdated family structures that hinder women at the
workforce.
Shared parental leave
Though maternity leave
is essential, its existence reinforces the stereotype that women are the sole
caregivers by denying fathers the opportunity to be more involved without
penalty to their career.
We can draw on the
examples of Iceland, where legislation guarantees both fathers and mothers
three months of paid leave each. Paternity leave was offered to fathers as
non-transferrable time off to care for their children. The introduction of
paternity leave in Vietnam could send a signal that fathers are valued for
something other than income and allow them to share responsibilities with
raising children and managing housework.
Adrien Bizouard,
country manager of Robert Walters Vietnam, also suggested it would be a
positive first step for Vietnam to guarantee leave for both men and women for
the birth of their child, saying this way women may not feel the need to pass
up promotions or key projects, thereby allowing both parents’ career trajectory
to remain level.
If both parents taking
leave were to become a norm, employers would begin to expect both parents to
take an equal amount of time off for their children without penalising them for
it.
Though equal parental leave is not a cure-all
to create parity for women in the workplace and at home, it would be a good
first step with proven efficacy. Additionally, since children learn through
osmosis, this would provide excellent role models and expose them to
gender-equal relationships.
