2024-05-09 20:29:44
BOLZANO. «I have been president of the Alliance for Families since 2015 and, in these nine years, I have noticed a constant increase in women with small children forced to resign. They throw in the towel because they can no longer manage work and family commitments. Reason? In particular the increasing difficulties in finding a place in nursery or nursery school. The figures confirm it: only in Bolzano are there 260 children on the waiting list for a place in nursery. Can you explain to me how those who don’t have grandparents willing to babysit do it? In the end they decide to quit.”
Christa Ladurnerpresident of the Alliance for Families, on May 15th, International Family Daywill be at the conference organized together with other associations and dedicated to the transformations that have taken place in recent years, which require greater support at the level of services.
According to the latest Labor Market survey, in 2023, over 2 thousand women with small children resigned “voluntarily” in Alto Adige due to the impossibility of reconciling life and work.
And the consequence is twofold: one is economic and type-related, the other concerns career progression.
Today, with the cost of living skyrocketing, both couples have to work.
Working both is a necessity. Even for those families who choose to settle for less. If anything, those who can afford it are those who, having the family home, do not have to pay rent or mortgage. Added to the economic aspect, particularly for those with a certain type of professionalism, is the career. Interruptions that are too long cause a woman – as they say – to miss the train. In reality it also happens to men. But generally it is women who stay at home.
In Alto Adige, however, there are several subsidies.
Of course, and in the end it happens more and more often that we opt for those. If managing work and family becomes impossible, you resign. For two years there is unemployment benefit; then, given that in Alto Adige we have full employment, a place – especially in certain areas – can always be found.
Where are the main service gaps?
Nurseries and micro-structures are exploding: there are dozens of children from zero to three years old on the waiting list. Also because they are also frequented by children who are already well past the age of three.
Excuse me, but shouldn’t “grown-ups” already attend nursery school (3-6 years old)?
They should, but that’s not always the case. Because anyone who turns three years old after December 31st must wait until September of the following year to be accepted into school. This is why we ask that it be done as in Trento, where two entrances are foreseen for nursery school: one in September and the other in January.
Then there is the problem of summer holidays.
Those are a nightmare for parents.
However, nursery school teachers also claim the right to go on holiday.
Nobody denies it. In fact, this is why I say that investments are needed to extend the school calendar by hiring staff. As they are doing in Trentino.
What are the differences between the two provinces?
Substantial, I would say. If in Alto Adige the nursery school is open from early September to mid-June; in Trentino it always starts in early September, but the service is guaranteed until July 31st.
However, in Alto Adige there are a series of projects in which children aged 3 and up can enroll.
To be there, I am there. But they are all paid. Not only that: they are generally projects that last a couple of weeks. So it means that – during the summer – a child is tossed from side to side several times. In places different from those he was used to normally frequenting and with different people.
2024-05-09 20:29:44