Maria Rosa Buxarrais talks about conciliation: “A change in conciliation will not happen until there is a forceful social demand”
Tomorrow, Tuesday 27 January, the book La conciliación familiar, laboral, social y personal: una cuestión ética is presented at the bookshop Documenta, in Barcelona, (144, Carrer Pau Claris), at 7 p.m. The editors and co-authors of the book—Maria Rosa Buxarrais, professor of Moral Education at the UB, and Marta Burguet, lecturer of Education at the University— participate in the event, which will be introduced by Anna Mercadé, director of the Observatory Women, Business and Economics of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona.
From last January, the bookshop Documenta hosts the editorial collection of the University of Barcelona. This emblematic bookshop, specialized in humanities, was founded in 1975 by Josep Cots and Ramon Planas. Recently, it was moved to the Carrer Pau Claris, after being located at the Carrer del Cardenal Casañas for more than forty years.
We interview Maria Rosa Buxarrais and Marta burguet, co-authors of the book, who describe its main aspects.
Tomorrow, Tuesday 27 January, the book La conciliación familiar, laboral, social y personal: una cuestión ética is presented at the bookshop Documenta, in Barcelona, (144, Carrer Pau Claris), at 7 p.m. The editors and co-authors of the book—Maria Rosa Buxarrais, professor of Moral Education at the UB, and Marta Burguet, lecturer of Education at the University— participate in the event, which will be introduced by Anna Mercadé, director of the Observatory Women, Business and Economics of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona.
From last January, the bookshop Documenta hosts the editorial collection of the University of Barcelona. This emblematic bookshop, specialized in humanities, was founded in 1975 by Josep Cots and Ramon Planas. Recently, it was moved to the Carrer Pau Claris, after being located at the Carrer del Cardenal Casañas for more than forty years.
We interview Maria Rosa Buxarrais and Marta burguet, co-authors of the book, who describe its main aspects.
The book demonstrates the need to organise first personal life before trying to conciliate its other aspects. However, public policies continue playing a major role in conciliation. What is the role played by public policies? Are they effective to solve this problem?
Certainly, public policies can also determine as a priority that people first concern about organising their personal life, and try to avoid that time and family management are responsibilities taken always by the same people. In fact, they are shared responsibilities: on the one hand, personal life responsibilities cannot be taken by anyone except you, and they enable you to grow personally and collectively, and on the other hand, public responsibilities allow citizens developing their life in a responsible, autonomous and adult way.
For instance, those children who live at homes where no one does shared duties (for example, do the shopping or wash the clothes), will not be able to manage shared aspects of life in the future. Therefore, they will only favour their personal interests and forget common duties.
However, we know that nowadays there are some initiatives that propose a timetable reform that will provide citizens with more free time. This is one of the aspects analysed in the book.
Is the lack of conciliation a consequence of modern paces of life or of an inadequate ethical education?
It is a consequence of both. On the one hand, present paces of life difficult conciliation in terms of time and space. Remember that to conciliate means to manage time and space. So, conciliation is more difficult in urban areas than in rural environments. In big cities, families are smaller and use to live in small places, whereas in rural areas, homes are bigger and they are usually shared by larger families. These features determine conciliation so much, even if it is a question that has to do with values and ethics.
Moreover, gender has to be considered too. Gender is associated with housework and family care. Housework distribution continues to be unequal. In general, men take less care of these aspects and devote more time to social activities, such as the participation in associative and political issues.
In your opinion, conciliation is an ethical question that must be learned and assumed. How will you manage it?
Values and ethical behaviour are learned from models, not from great words or speeches. The important thing is to see adults doing the housework: cleaning, washing and devoting some time to themselves and the others (parents, children, friends, etc.). To say children what they must do is not effective. Children learn from imitation.
Do you think that there is a lack of social and political sensibility towards this aspect? Why?
Yes, we find samples of the lack of citizen sensibility —not only at the political level—, and the lack of personal and collective conscience every day. It is not understandable that some professional contexts —like education and healthcare— pay attention to conciliation, while others, like business or commerce, do not consider it at all.
It is important to consider that farming has always required many hours of work. However, this has not have a negative impact on house management or the care provided to family members. On the contrary, these tasks have been shared among all family members, independently of their age, who have assumed them as part of living together.
Many countries have proved that conciliation has many advantages; peopleʼs welfare is one of them. A change in conciliation will not happen until there is a forceful social demand.