RECONCILING

WORK AND FAMILY

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Rhoda Reddock
Yvonne Bobb-Smith

BACKGROUND

Commissioned by the Work and Family

Programme of the INTERNATIONAL
LABOUR ORGANIZATION (ILO)
With special emphasis on the following
Conventions:
o

Workers with Family Responsibilities

Convention (No. 156 of 1981)
Maternity Protection Family Responsibilities
Convention (No. 183 of 2000)

OBJECTIVES

TO DOCUMENT IMPORTANT CHANGES

OCCURING IN FAMILY AND WORK IN
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO o
o
o

o
o

Changes in family structure & role;

Implications for changing nature of work;
Policies & practices to reduce work-family
conflict;
Gender impact of work-family conflict;
Impact of family responsibilities on earning
and poverty;
Recommendations for Reconciling Work
with Family.

RESEARCH METHODS

PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION

SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION

PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION

FORMAL INTERVIEWS e.g.

Workers in Social Services

Labour Consultants;
Family social workers;
Human resource managers;
Trade union leadership;
Tobago House of Assembly.

INFORMAL INTERVIEWS/OBSERVATIONS
e.g.

Female and male parents

Consumers in malls
Workers in the informal economy
Workers in Early childhood centres

SECONDARY DATA COLLECTION

PUBLICATIONS AND ONLINE

RESOURCES

Industrial Court Library

Family Court Library
Ministry of Social Development
Ministry of Labour and Micro-enterprise
Development
University of the West Indies

Centre for Gender & Development studies;

Central Statistical office

ILO and Govt of T&T Online Resources.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation

Women as household heads

households below the poverty line tend to be larger and
headed by females who are often single mothers with
dependent children, or contain at least one elderly person
living alone or in an extended family setting sometimes
having responsibility for the entire household.
Elderly in Households
22% of all households had at least one older person (65
years and older). Of these, 42% were extended family
households while 21% comprised persons living alone.
Male Single Parents
There are a minority of single father families. They were
more likely than married fathers to be living in an extended
or complex household and to have more adult support
available.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation
WORK AND CHANGING FAMILY TRADITIONS

Parents utilize the services of paid help for

preschoolers, such as daily or live-in domestic
help.
They place children in the care of neighbours or
relatives.
They give responsibilities to older siblings;
They use private or public child-care services.
They hire help for after school care.
They choose jobs, which have flexible hours to
manipulate their work time around hours for
childcare.
They establish their own businesses.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation
FAMILY, WORK AND THE SEXUAL DIVISION
OF LABOUR

Grandparents, from fifty up, perform

parenting roles especially in cases of
abandonment of children by biological
parents.
This form of informal adoption arises out
of unemployment, migration, substance
abuse, death caused by HIV/AIDS,
murder and incarceration.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation

Children in households with younger heads

-under 30 and 30-39 years of age are 80% and
40% more likely to attend school than children in
households with older heads those age[d] 40+
(Bronte Tinkew,1998:27).

Joan Rawlins (2004) study found that 82% of

caregivers of the elderly were women. Forty-five
percent were over 50 years old and seven
percent, between 20-29 years old. Spouses
cared for 23%.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation

Women find great difficulty in continuing

breastfeeding after returning to work;
I returned to work when my son was 3 months old. I visit his
daycare every working day to breastfeed him and to express milk.
How do I do it? My day goes like this: I breastfeed him at about
7:00 am before we leave home. I drop my (two) older children to
school and then leave my baby in St James. I begin my lunch hour at
11:00 am and drive for 20 minutes from downtown, Port of Spain
(capital) to St James (suburbs). When I arrive there, he is usually
hungry and looking out for me, so I breastfeed him immediately I
eat the lunch I have brought with me and drive back to work, getting
there by 12:30 pm (Helen Ross, t.i.b.s NEWS April//June 2004: 1-2).

CASE STUDY 1 - COPING WITH WORK &

BREASTFEEDING

HR BREASTFEEDS HER 3 MONTH OLD

SON AT LUNCH TIME Leaves her office downtown at 11:00
am,
Drives herself and takes 20+ minutes
to arrive at the daycare in St. James.
Breastfeeds him;
Eats her lunch;
Returns to work at 12:30 pm.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation Family and the Sexual
Division of Labour Contd

Women continue to have major responsibilities

for housework and child care;

Some men have become more sensitized and

share responsibilities mainly in transporting
children to and from school, supervising
homework and grooming children;

Women reported difficulties in assigning

housework to family members including children.

Trends in Family and Household

Organisation Family and the Sexual
Division of Labour Contd

Mrs D, is a 51 year old hotel-worker, and head of

a threegeneration household of seven persons,
Her daughter and three granddaughters, 16, 14,
10 years live with her. She copes by giving her
daughter and grandchildren responsibilities for
domestic tasks. Her husband, who is a builder,
primarily does repairs to the house and yard
work. She spends her time organizing and
coordinating responsibilities

CASE STUDY 3 -COPING THROUGH DIVISION

OF LABOUR

Mrs. D, hotel-worker, Tobago is head of

a 3-generation household.
Her daughter and 3 grand-daughters
share responsibilities for domestic
tasks.
Her husband does house and yard
tasks.
This system barely enables her to go
regularly to her job, while she has to
coordinate family responsibilities.

ASSESSMENT (1)
NEW FORMS OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT ARE FOUND IN:

Difficulties of transportation and commuting. Traffic

congestion and poor and unreliable public
transportation including absence of a School Bus
Service;
Mrs C. leaves Palmiste (South Trinidad) for her job in the
capital city, Port of Spain at 5:15 am and arrives at work at
6:00 am. Her seven year old son travels to school a few
miles away in a carpool. When his father is not at work, he
takes him to school. She leaves work between 4:00 and
5:00 pm and arrives home between 6:30 and 8:00 pm in
the evening. She notes that quality time with her son on a
daily basis is reduced to merely an hour or less, as she sees
him go to bed, and perhaps reads to him.

CASE STUDY 2 - COPING WITH

TRANSPORTATION AND SECURITY

Mr. J., Taxi-driver, shuttles his 3

children to school and back home.
Two kids are at a school in Maraval
and the other is downtown.
This reduces his earnings during
peak hours.

Assessment 1 Contd
Rapid Industrialization and Urbanization

Families and households have had to respond to

the quick pace of social and technological change,
and the attendant social dislocation;
Increasing work demands;
Womens insistence, generally, for a life beyond
the household;
Absence of family members for support due to
migration; increasing employment of women;
grandmothers no longer always available.

ASSESSMENT (3)
Work hours and school hours are not
synchronized;

Work hours differ from the school hours and

this is often a cause of much stress.
Schools may end at 12.15, 1.30, 2.00, 2.30,
3.00 or 5.15 p.m.
This stress has been heightened with the
increase in violent crime causing discomfort
for parents and children.

FINDINGS (1)

Female parents make a valid attempt to combine

their need for career fulfillment and economic
autonomy but few support systems exist for
them;

This was especially so for poor working-class

mothers who may have to work when their
children return home from school and during
school vacations.

FINDINGS (2)

Neither the Employers Consultative Association

nor the Trade Union Movement have systems in
place to address this issue;
Little effort by the State as well to address the
compatibility between workers rights and their
family responsibilities.
Efforts aimed at providing childcare services in
.
work vicinities such as office complexes,
industrial estates need to be accelerated.

FINDINGS (3)

Increasingly citizens primary concerns are

related to school transportation and school
locations.
The business sector has given much less
priority to the reduction of work-family
conflict.
The state sector has indirectly addressed
some aspects with initiatives like early
childhood education services and the
School Nutrition Programme.

FINDINGS (4)

YET, CITIZENS STILL RELY

STRONGLY ON PERSONAL
STRATEGIES TO COPE.

RECOMMENDATIONS (1)
THE STATE (Selected)

Establishment of a multidisciplinary task force to

examine the recommendations of this study and
recommend legislative and other changes;
Develop a pilot project of one Family-Friendly
Government Ministry to include a crche, breastfeeding breaks, after school care centre, vacation
programme; etc.
Review the draft National Gender Policy and
implement relevant recommendations;
Reintroduction of the Basic Conditions of Work Bill;
Review the National Transportation Plan with a
focus on school transport;

RECOMMENDATIONS (1)
THE STATE (Selected)

The strengthening of the Ministry of Labour to better

monitor conditions of work in the low-wage sections
of the public and private sector;
Rationalization of school opening and closing hours;
Greater decentralization of essential services and
public offices to main towns and Tobago to prevent
time lost in transacting personal business e.g.
passports, ID cards, motor vehicle licences, taxation
related matters etc.
Consider offering tax incentives to firms that
implement practices that address work-family
conflict.

RECOMMENDATIONS (2)
PRIVATE SECTOR (Selected)

Develop a workplace culture to encourage

workers contribution to work-family
compatibility policies;
Implement flexitime arrangements;
Develop collectively funded solutions, e.g.
homework centres, crches, and so on at
the workplace.
Document and Publicize Best Practices

RECOMMENDATIONS (3)

TRADE UNIONS (Selected)

o

Introduce measures aimed at addressing workfamily conflict into collective bargaining;

Implement sensitivity and awareness
programmes on work-family reconciliation;
Facilitate gender sensitivity training for all trade
union personnel male and female;
Develop a public education campaign on this
issue and its impact on parenting, youth
criminality; worker commitment etc..

CONCLUSION
THE CREATION OF
FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORK SITUATIONS
DEMANDS A CHANGE IN THE
MINDSET WHICH SEPARATES
INCOME-EARNING WORK FROM
FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD.
IT CHALLENGES ALL SECTORS,
HOWEVER, IT REQUIRES
CREATIVITY AND LONG-TERM
COMMITMENT.

THANK YOU!