labour market
Lagarde: Working from home shouldn’t just be a woman’s job
According to ECB President Christine Lagarde, not only women should work in the home office. Photo: Annette Riedl/dpa
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Household, children and work can be reconciled better for some in the home office than in the office. But the ECB President warns of a development to the detriment of women.
According to ECB President Christine Lagarde, companies should ensure that it is not primarily women who work from home while men stay in the office.
There is a tendency for women to work from home more often than men because they can then better combine work and family, Lagarde explained in the ECB podcast published over the weekend. In it, she talks to Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics, about equality between men and women at work and in society ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8th.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has therefore encouraged employees: “We want you all to take advantage of teleworking,” said Lagarde. It should not happen that at some point most women work at home and most men work in offices. “That would be a disaster.”
Lagarde warned that part-time work was also associated too strongly with women. “And that leads to further discrimination, slower career development, less professional development and training and so on.”
In her environment she observed that the corona pandemic had intensified the problem. It was mainly the women who stayed at home to look after the children during the school closures – sometimes alongside the job. But it is mainly the women who take care of older relatives who are in need of care. “I’m really concerned about that,” Lagarde said.