European course / Parcours européen - 3

 

 

Fonds Social Européen - FSE en France

EQUAL - Programme d'initiative communautaire - PIC

Lutter contre les discriminations et les inégalités face à l'emploi

CONVENTION CADRE N° 2001.LIM.11162

European project CREA 2003

Semana europeia para a conciliação trabalho / vidaz familiar e social

http://www.viver.org/semana/programa.html

Intervenants

http://www.viver.org/semana/oradores.html#

 

 

COMMUNICATION DE PHILIPPE BARBEY

Ingénieur social de la CAF de la Corrèze - FRANCE

 

TRADUCTION / TRANSLATION :

CONSEIL DÉPARTEMENTAL DE LA CORRÈZE

Introduction

 

Experience-sharing deeply transforms the thought, and one does not take part inan European network without drawing from it a different vision of the world. To place itself in an European network requires making certain exemplary proof at home. This follows the sense of an increasing responsability of each member on his level. Corrèze is a "peasant" land wich measures its adavancements in concrete projects. However, it is also a land with sometimes fixed mentalities and resistance to change. Also, engagement in a network of European cities and territories for conciliation is a formidable occasion for it to resolutely place itself in modern times.

 

This can be comprehended that the local solution also depends on a total solution and that the values can be identical.

1. Local context

Facing the major inequality problems of access to chlidcare services in the departement of Corrèze, and the resulting discriminations and differential accessibility between men and women to the labour market, Project CREA (CREAtion of offers and innovating local services) offers a new thinking and experimentation space.

This project aims at generating a dynamic in order to help women reconcile heavy family obligations and an increasingly flexible professional life.

It is a question of adapting the current system of care young children and of creating new more flexible systems of chlidcare to facilitate the professional life and/or the access for women to employment.

Other partners (State, Consular Boards, family associations...) are closely associated to the setting up of the actions for which they feel particularly concerned.

The complementing competences which this local partnership facilitates makes it possible to ensure a transversal approach integrating the fields of :

- professional insertion and training,

- the supply of new services to the population,

- the co-construction (companies, elected officials, families) of projects at the most local level.

 

A. Demographic data

Some date illustrates the demographic situation of the Departement of Corrèze :

- 230,000 inhabitants in 1999

- 38 inhabitants / km2

- 286 communes (of which 80% have less than 500 inhabitants)

- twice as many people aged + 60 years / - 20 years)

- 32,000 CAF (Family Allowance Fund) recipients, which represents approximately 70,000 people oin the department.

In 10 years the number of inhabitants dropped by 1.5%. The most alarming projections envisage a fall of 9% between now and 2020. To face this demographic decline, the department must carry out strong steps to attract new people.

In order to improve these new inhabitants' loyalty, we need to offer local services adapted to the new organizations of professional activities of the parents, and in particular of the mothers in the family.

 

B. Economic and sociological data

Corrèze is characterized by certain specificities (source diagnostic cabinet Qaatalyse- August 2001) :

- a changing rural economy - Corrèze has a significant number of very small companies and is characterized by the importance of agriculture in local employment. Traditionally, the husband and wife were both involved in the management of this type of company. However, it is now more frequent that the woman also needs to work outside of this company due to strong external pressures which necesssitate a need for a complement of household income.

- a local industrial fabric characterized by the importance of food industries. These companies, whose workload is variable according to the time of year, resort to a female and seasonal labour force whose working hours are flexible and are often shifted.

- a flexibility in the work organization was recently accentuated by the change in law launching a time reduction of the working week. Today, a growing number of employed people are working shifted schedules in the department.

- a still very significant proportion of job applications are from women. In Corrèze, this rate rises to 57.1% (whereas it is 52.2% for the whole of France). The long-term unemployed women form part of the public targeted by the insertions efforts carried out by the Conseil Général de la Corrèze (General Council of Correze). The main restraints with insertion, regularly quoted, are the lack of mobility and the difficulties encountered to find suitable chlidcare.

To have quality childcare systems; adapted to the new constraints of professional life (like shifted schedules) and to the needs of the children, became a determining element in the access to employment, particularly for women, mothers and family.

 

C. Description of the current methods of childcare

Among the existing local services in Corrèze, one notes a dominant and near exclusive presence of services for old people. Services for children are very limited.

In rural zone particularly, there is almost no collective care for children. The only childcare available solutions are the recourse to the nursery worker or the family. Diificulties of distance then often arise and, therefore, of transport between the family and the nursery worker. The problem of isolation is even greater for the new-comers to the region who do not have family in the area.

 

Read Project CREA

http://barbeyeuropa.jimdo.com/ue-fse-crea-2001-2003/presentation-of-crea/