Position of women in labour market crumbling

The sentiment that a woman's place is at home seems to have gained ground again

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By Marjo Ollikainen
     
      Labour market researchers and trade unions warn that the position of women in the labour market is being seriously undermined.
      Finland is suddenly speaking about the value of domestic work once again - and by chance at the same time that Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary Raimo Sailas proposed that the right to day-care services should be limited. The ministry as well as the business sector are advocating the abandonment of special raises for low-income sectors and general raises across the board in collective wage agreements.
      "This represents a return to male providers and a male-dominated family model where women are shown their place at home by the stove", comments Professor of Sociology Harri Melin from the University of Turku.
     
According to Melin, the aforementioned demands reflect clearly the ideology that is now running rampant in Finland: the desire to save in the expenses of a welfare state.
      "Proposals that would weaken the position of women in the labour market represent a clear step towards dismantling or diminishing the public sector", Melin explains.
      Finland faces a tough equation: the coming wave of retirements will decrease tax revenues but also add to the need for municipal services. Now there is an attempt to cut services by having women care for children and the elderly at home.
     
"Perhaps municipal expenses would fall, but at the same time, the number of jobs available for day-care personnel would decrease. And what is forgotten in this model is that the employees of for example hospitals and health centres, who are predominantly female, could not come to work if there was no functioning day-care", observes Director Leila Kostiainen from the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees.
      Even the unemployed must be at the disposal of the job market at all times. This cannot be managed if there is no day-care available for their children, Kostiainen points out.
      Tuire Santamäki-Vuori, the Chairwoman of the Trade Union for the Municipal Sector, is also concerned.
      "Now there is a clear phase that romanticises caring for children and relatives. If working-age citizens wish to care for their loved ones themselves, that is OK, and it must be so. But they must not be morally obligated or forced to do so."
      In addition, long periods of home care mean that the caregivers are absent from the job market, making a return to work more difficult, Santamäki-Vuori continues.
     
What is contradictory in the demands is that Finland will face a labour shortage in the coming years.
      "Those who make these demands are not looking further ahead than a couple of years. Finnish society will never survive without the labour market efforts of women", says Chairwoman Jaana Laitinen-Pesola from the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals.
      Also, the average education level of women is higher.
      "If they stay at home, we will face an impossible shortage of skills. Who will then cure the ill and teach; where will the business professionals be? How would Sailas solve this equation?" Harri Melin asks.
     
Perhaps that is what this is all about, fears Jaana Laitinen-Pesola.
      "I would like to believe that no one wants to see women between the stove and the fist, but these comments have come mainly from the mouths of men. With women better educated than men, is this the empire striking back?"
      Although women have more advanced degrees, the effect is upside-down in wage statistics.
      "Finland's weaknesses are fixed-term jobs and the wage gap, which is clearly unfair relative to the education level of women", says Anna-Maija Lehto, who studies the labour market at Statistics Finland.
      This problem is not alleviated in the least by the pressure to increase local income bargaining and profit-sharing wage schemes, Lehto explains.
      "Women have received much less in the way of bonuses, and the sums they get are clearly smaller than those paid to men."
     
This threat has been observed in the industrial sector as well. Chairman Erkki Vuorenmaa from the Finnish Metalworkers' Union has even accused Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen of supporting a wage model that would lower the wages of low-earning citizens and women.
      "Advocating home care is traditional Centre Party ideology. I could cautiously say that its new coming has begun after the Centre assumed power again", Professor Melin says.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.10.2004

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MARJO OLLIKAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
marjo.ollikainen@hs.fi