The National - News

Companies urged to improve childcare

- DANIA SAADI

Offering childcare in the workplace has an economic impact on societies and companies, which benefit from staff retention, productivi­ty gain and improvemen­t in recruitmen­t, a new report reveals.

The study, published by Internatio­nal Finance Corporatio­n (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group, drew its conclusion­s based on 10 case studies of companies around the world.

The firms included the Japanese lender The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, the Jordanian garment manufactur­er MAS Kreeda Al Safi-Madaba and the Turkey-based automotive component maker Martur.

“We have surveyed many countries around the world and surveyed many companies around the world, and we have seen the impact of childcare on the productivi­ty of the companies, on retention and on profitabil­ity of these companies,” said Mouayed Makhlouf, the regional director for the IFC.

A study conducted by Women UN in 2012 in 30 developing and developed countries found that women devote more time to housework and childcare, with the difference ranging between 50 per cent more in Cambodia to three times more in Italy.

“One of the things that we have been supporting and pushing which leads to economic growth in most of these countries is the gender agenda,” said Mr Makhlouf.

Improving women’s working conditions is conducive to economic prosperity, according to the consultanc­y McKinsey.

Nearly US$12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by promoting women’s equality and the public, private and social sectors will need to act to close gender gaps in work and society, it said.

“The driver for us in all of this really is economic growth,” said Mr Makhlouf.

“Having better economic policies in a country is linked to gender, it is linked to equal business opportunit­ies for women.”

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