Background to the Research

• The NOW ll project was set up by Moylinn House, CDSSA in order to focus on gender equality issues. Through its work, it seeks to encourage greater female participation in the workforce by encouraging employers and training organisations to rethink their policies in relation to female employment.
• In 1998 the NOW ll project was given a grant by the EOC to carry out research into the provision of family friendly policies in industry in the Greater Craigavon Area. Throughout this research issues regarding child-care were a recurrent theme and the NOW ll project commissioned a further piece of research on the topic of child-care provision, and the findings from this form the basis of this report.
  

Research Approach

• The research sought to establish if there was an increased level of absenteeism due to childcare responsibilities, the extent and nature of such absenteeism and to explore the benefits of financial support for childcare. The data were gathered through a questionnaire administered to 578 female employees of firms in the Greater Cragiavon Area (246 questionnaires were completed) and through a focus group of ten employees from one firm.
  

Main Findings

• Of the 246 respondents, 44% (109) were mothers and 117 (48%) had no dependant responsibilities. Forty-five per cent of mothers had children of primary school age or below.
• Sixty-eight per cent of respondents worked normal daytime office hours, 24% worked shifts and 8% worked part-time days only.
• Of 241 respondents, there was a total of 1092 days taken as sickness absence - an average of 4.5 days per person. Sickness absenteeism among those with dependant children was only slightly higher than for those without dependant children.
• Amongst respondents, the main reason for sickness absenteeism was genuine sickness and the second most common reason was to look after a sick child. Sickness absenteeism because of lack of childcare was negligible.
• Of those with dependant children, 32% had been late for work on occasions and just over 33% had to leave work early on occasions. Being late for work, or leaving work early, is more of a problem for women with primary school age children.
• Forty-six per cent of respondents used relatives/friends for childcare, 34% school, 7% registered childminders and 9% day-care/nurseries. Those who use relatives/friends as child-care are less affected than others in all time-keeping problems and those who use a day-care/nursery slightly more affected.
• Almost 22% of sickness leave by those with dependant children was taken because the dependant child was sick, this was significantly more likely where the child was in a day-care centre (50% of those who used a day-care centre had taken sickness absence to look after a sick child).
• Taking sickness absence because of lack of child-care accounted for 3% of sickness absence amongst those with dependant children, with almost 19% of those using a registered child-minder taking sickness absence because of lack of child-care cover.
• Sickness absence due to looking after a sick child declines as the dependants age increases and fewer women are affected. Where almost 40% of those with pre-school dependants had taken time off for this reason, this falls to under 14% for those with children over 16 years old.
• The majority of those using a relative/friend (61%) and those who use day-care/nursery (60%) had no problems with child-care during the summer holidays, whereas 54% of those who used registered child-minders reported having problems. The age of the dependant child is a bigger factor than the type of child-care used, with the move from pre-school age to primary school showing the greatest rise in problems.

Recommendations

• Personnel should address the issue of sickness absence due to a child being sick, people should be able to take this time off without their pay being effected.
• Personnel should explore methods of introducing more flexible working hours in their organisations. This could mean flexi-time or floating days. Others may wish to introduce a later starting time for some individuals or a system where hours can be made-up later.
• A comprehensive list of childcare facilities should be made available to all employees.
• A child-minder agency should be established in order to cater for ad hoc provision when child-care fails. Research is needed to explore the benefits and drawbacks of using a child-minder agency.
• Employers should consider forming a consortium group to establish a low-cost day care centre or buying in places with an existing child-care provider and selling them to employees at a reduced rate.