How to improve the participation rate of women in the Belgian labor market? The International Monetary Fund yesterday delivered its recommendations to Belgium. And in addition to the endless recommendations on the Belgian public deficit, growth or productivity, the institution strongly suggests that Belgium boost the employment rate for women. How? ‘Or’ What ? By extending parental leave, and reducing the “marital quotient”. Explanations.
The IMF offers “reconsider parental leave policies, and reduce disincentives”. Delia Velculescu, director of the IMF mission to Belgium draws a clear observation: “We have compared Belgium to other countries in terms of parental leave. And we believe that Belgium should align itself with its neighbors by being more generous in terms of parental leave”.
Belgium should be more generous in matters of parental leave.
The institution does not specify how much parental leave should be extended. Nor how this extension should be financed.
But therefore consider that longer parental leaves promote a better distribution of household tasks. And therefore also more equality between men and women on the labor market.
And, still to increase the employment rate of women, there is more, for Delia Velculescu: “On the tax side, removing the incentive that is the marital quotient would be likely to encourage the entry or return of women to the labor market.
The “marital quotient”, keskako?
The marital quotient is a tax measure. Which allows spouses or legal cohabitants, one of whom earns less than 30% of household income to be taxed part of the income of the other.
The incomes of the one who earns the least are fictitiously inflated, and those of the one who earns the most fictitiously reduced, by an amount capped at 10,940 euros today. This lowers the taxes payable. The conjugal quotient therefore lowers the overall tax burden of the couple.
This allows couples in which one of them earns nothing or almost nothing, to have their heads financially above water. The measure therefore concerns very low wages. But then why does the IMF want to remove this measure?
An incentive for the housewife
Why does the IMF actually consider this marital quotient as “deterrent” with regard to the employment of women? Because, if on paper, this tax rule is not gendered, in reality, it is. The person who earns the least in a heterosexual couple is in the vast majority of cases the woman. If she gets a job or re-works, it sometimes means losing money in the household, especially if we are talking about a low-paid job. The marital quotient therefore becomes in effect a kind of incentive for the housewife.
Delete the marital quotient?
Simply removing this marital quotient, would that really have more women in the workforce? Simply removing this marital quotient would automatically squeeze the finances of many low-income households. But combined with other measures that would make work – especially for low-skilled women – possible and interesting, why not?
First and foremost, lower taxes on the lowest paid. But also, more childcare places (this recommendation was formulated by the Higher Employment Council in January). More possibility to entrust your child for example, to a crèche and that it costs less than today. We are talking about “participation rate of women in the labor market”, of course. But also of economic emancipation of women.
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