Reconciliation between work and family life

Print version

Reconciliation between work and family life is one of the crucial conditions for implementing the equal opportunities of both sexes, especially in the field of employment and on the labour market. This issue can be perceived by the time consuming and time sharing, by taking into the consideration the personal needs in the professional sphere and by the reconciliation of personal or family life with the professional activities of women and men.

Taking care of children

In 2005, 777 kindergartens that operated in Slovenia were educating slightly more than 57,000 children and almost 900 elementary schools were educating around 170,000 children. A third of children younger than 15 years living in Slovenia spent time in kindergarten, with baby-sitters or in after-school classes when their parents were at work. A quarter of children were taken care of by one of the parents (usually their mother) and about a fifth were taken care of by relatives, neighbours or friends.

Taking care of eldery persons that need help

In the same year there were 68 old people’s homes in Slovenia taking care of almost 14,000 people, while almost 11,000 people had to be turned down. Among people in the age group 15 to 64 years, 81,000 or slightly less than 6% of all persons in this age group were taking care of a person aged 15+ who required help due to illness, disability or age. 54,000 or two thirds of them were persons in employment; most of them were satisfied with the reconciliation between work and family life since about a fifth answered that they would rather work less and spend more time taking care of an adult who needs help.

Absence from work

In 2005, there were 312,000 people in Slovenia aged 15 to 64 and living in the same household with their or their partner’s child younger than 15. In the year before the survey only about 5% of them were absent from work at least once because they had no care for their child; in most of the cases there was no care during the daytime. They did not complain about the quality of care or about the availability of care at night.

Talking about the reconciliation between work and family life, one cannot avoid mentioning the opportunities offered by enterprises to their employees to reconcile more easily the family and work commitments. In 2005 almost 80% of persons in employment aged 15 to 64 were able to take a day off from work due to family reasons and work the missing hours later on. It is similar with the possibility to start or end the working day early. Slightly more than 80% of persons in employment aged 15 to 64 had the possibility to start or end the working day at least an hour earlier for family reasons.

Parental leave

In 2005 about 35,000 people in Slovenia took parental leave in the 12 months before the interview; two thirds of them were women. In all cases the leave was paid. A great majority of them (95%) used the leave in one part and 5% in two or more parts.

More about this issue is available HERE.