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The Star reports that the 2021 Women’s Report indicates that greater investment in early childhood care and education would increase employment opportunities for women in SA.
The report, which focuses on the life and work of women in SA, was released on Monday. It was sponsored by the University of Stellenbosch Business School and distributed in partnership with the SA Board for People Practices. “While the benefits to children of early childhood development (ECD) centres are clear and widely accepted, the associated opportunity to achieve another key developmental imperative of enabling women to participate meaningfully in the labour force, is seldom considered – yet this too would aid in addressing persistent inequality,” economist and report contributor Laura Brooks indicated. The report estimates that more than 300,000 people are employed in ECD centres, 95% of them women, serving approximately 2.5 million children and mostly operating in the informal and non-profit sector. Brooks said providing more widely available and affordable ECD centres would have an exponential impact on enabling more women to participate in the labour force. “For each woman who works in caring for children, whether as a child minder or day mother in a private home or community facility, or working in a formal ECD centre, another six to 10 women are able to take up full-time employment,” she said. Brooks pointed out that the government needed to move away from the paradigm of ECD as a social welfare service and see it as a socio-economic development opportunity to grow a sustainable, community-based sector that generated employment and supports better education outcomes.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Chulumanco Mahamba at The Star
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