Middle Class Women's Work and Childcare in Paris

Today, France draws attention from neighbouring countries because of its high birth rate. French women are also relatively active in their labour work participation. In Paris, the number of women in work is especially high, and the number of nurseries is inadequate. How do women manage to find a place or person to look after their children while they are at work? How are women and class related to the issues of childcare?  These are the main interests of this paper. In France, the most widely used form of childcare is the registered childminder, the so-called “Assistants maternels”, and not nurseries as in Sweden. The paper will put the emphasis on this French registered childminder system.

  According to a French national report on childcare, in 2011, 37 % of children under three whose parents worked full time were left with registered childminders who were approved by the local authorities and received children mainly in their own homes. 18% of children had places in nurseries, and 4 % were left with unregistered childminders, usually professional nannies who worked in the children’s homes.

  The French “Assistant maternel” system was passed into legislation in 1977 to clarify the undeclared work, and progressed during the 1990s to increase jobs in the domestic sphere. Local authorities conduct home inspections, and 120 hours of professional training is required for approval. The state takes charge of the social security cost of childminders.

Now in Paris, many childminders are immigrant women and they help middle class French women to work outside the home and to get higher wages than the childminders do. Mothers are generally satisfied with this system because of the flexibility of working time, which means the longer and less well paid work of immigrant women supports the work and families of French middle class women.