Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 27th Oct. International Labour Organization on Thursday said that providing continuous childcare to parents from the birth of their child to the start of mandatory schooling could bring a more than threefold return on investment
ILO stated “Such investments could also lead to reductions in gender and other inequalities, generation of decent jobs, improvements in health and wellbeing, and help create a path to social justice.”
ILO’s research covering 82 countries found that each US dollar invested in closing the gap in childcare between the end of parental leave and the first day of school would bring a $3.76 rise in global Gross Domestic Product by 2035, as parents mainly women exchange unpaid care work for paid and formal employment.
Only 26 countries have childcare laws which allow to bridge this gap, ILO said.
The agency projects that the measure would create 300 million jobs worldwide and reduce the global gender gap in monthly earnings from 20 per cent in 2019 to eight per cent in 2035.
ILO said that providing “universal, high-quality childcare services staffed by trained and valued early childhood education personnel” would require additional spending equivalent to 1.5 per cent of global GDP.
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