What proportion of mothers work in different countries?

[Bobbalina]

I am interested to find out what the norms are in other countires for the proportion of mothers who work full time/ part time / are not in paid work?

Particularly interested to know how it works out in other european countries and in the USA. Can anyone help me to find out?

Actually Emy72, in Northern Italy the majority of families use nurseries for the under 3s, as they are generally excellent (better than a nanny, imho).
In central/southern Italy you are right, there aren't many.

Both my grandmothers were firmly working class and kept on working, even after the end of ww2.

Hungary is fairly similar to the Czech Republic. No part-time jobs. Maternity leave was 3 years, but was recently cut back to 2 years. Most (career) women would go back to work after 1 year, because real high-powered jobs do not really wait.

The long maternity leave had a real negative effect on pensions, as older women really struggled to qualify for pension. I think my Mom had to have 35 years of work (and only one kid), and she had to work to an older age than my Dad. Nowadays hopefully maternity leave qualifies you for pension.

If you have 3 kids under 18 and the youngest is under 8, you can opt to be a "mother as a main employment". The state pays you about a £100 a month. I am not sure about the current amounts, as I do not know many people who went down this route.

Nurseries are few and far between and very expensive. Not as dear as in the UK though. I have just realised that we can afford private school for DS, as private school is cheaper than nursery .

My grandmas were both working in agriculture, so never officially worked or qualified for pension. They always worked on the fields, had phenomenal number of kids, then died relatively young.

I don;t know if it has changed much in the last 4 years, but when I was living in Spain, there was a shortage of nurseries, I had a hell of a job to get DS into one. It wasn't very cheap though. I managed to get a FT job in a factory, but the nursery fees took at least a third of my wages. After paying that and my rent I had barely enough to feed us on. Most mums work, but rely on GP for childcare. There is no welfare state, so lone parents have to live with grandparents or leave children in a 'casa de acojida', ie; care. Most businesses contract workers through ETT'S (empresas de trabajo temporal=temping agencies), and they take you on for a few days, getting a subvention from the state for employing an unemployed person, then they lay you off with no notice and employ someone else and get another paycheck from the state. I got layed off after a month working for H&M in their warehouse in Barcelona. I had to take a day off to look after my DS when he had sickness and diarrhoa, they called me the next morning and told me I wasn't needed any more. I was annoyed because our line manager was a Swede, from a country with some of the toughest employment protection laws in the world! She knew I was a mother, and just left me in deep financial trouble. I couldn't get another job and had to come back to the UK or give my son up to foster care.

The moral of the story; Spain has one of the lowest birth rates in The EU.

salizchap That is simply awful!

salizchap.

Thanks, gingercat. Interesting that they've cut maternity leave to 2 years. The deficit-cutting government that's just been elected here (well, it's not in place yet but we're told it will bes soon...) seems minded to leave the system at a choice of 2,3 or 4 here, which is very expensive. I know Hungary is more up against it, but still.

Japan is strange.
There is an excellent, well-funded and subsidised daycare system here. Your first child goes into daycare with gov help, the second child is half price, and the third child is free !!
There's a 'sick' nursery for days your child is sick and can't put them in the normal nursery. THere are night nurseries for mothers who work evenings and nights. It's very cheap. If you're pregnant or have a newborn you can put your child in nursery for the same price as if you were working FT.
In other words it's a highly subsidized system. There are also lots of 'drop-in' services where you can drop your child off for 4 hours or the day for about 7 pounds.

Anyway.

Despite this, most mothers don't or won't work. It's difficult for women to get ahead in the workplace, but it's the chicken and the egg. They won't work, so they aren't going to get ahead in the workplace IYSWIM.
There's lots of cultural reason why women won't work.
I've noticed that women who do want to work can get on quite well, however. They run businesses, become doctors, money brokers. Anything really. It's just that a lot of them seem to choose not to. They have a lot of family obligations, though esp the extended family.

I wish we had childcare like that here in the uk!

I think in Germany there is still quite a big cultural difference between east and west. For example in Bavaria children start kindergarten when they're 3, there's limited childcare for under 3s and the cultural expectation is much more that there will be a mother at home. In Berlin on the other hand there are lots of (relatively) cheap daycare places for babies upwards, all day schools and after school clubs. Lots of women seem to return to work full time.

Sakura Enviable childcare system.