Notes

¹ ILO: “Conclusions concerning social security and social protection: Equality of treatment between men and women”, in Report of the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on Social Security and Social Protection: Equality of Treatment between Men and Women, document no. TMESSE/1994/D.1 (Geneva, 1995), p. 11.

² This is also the case, for example, in Cyprus. Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, Italy, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Norway and Uruguay.

³ ILO social security database.

⁴ Country references are based on information taken from Social Security Administration, Office of Research and Statistics: Social security programs throughout the world - 1995, Research Report No. 64 (Washington, 1995).

⁵ The Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention. 1952 (No. 102), does not lay down the duration of leave. It does state that the payment of cash benefits may be limited to 12 weeks, unless a longer period away from work is required or authorized by national laws or regulations, in which case payments may not be limited to a lesser period than that authorized.

⁶ Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217A(III) of 10 December 1948.

⁷ Experts have raised the question of whether the non-liability of employers might be an obstacle to ratification of Convention No. 103, given the numerous developing countries in which employers bear the principal cost of maternity benefits. See ILO: Report of the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on Social Security and Social Protection, op. cit.. p. 3.

⁸ “Maternity arrangements ‘95: Part I”, in Equal Opportunities Review (London, Sep.-Oct. 1995), No. 63, p. 9.