Impact of the new directive on work-life balance in Spanish System

Abstract

The new Work-Life Balance Directive includes provisions for changes in worklife balance policies to fight against women discrimination in labour market. The Directive introduces an open scope and provides a new right to carers´ leave to support relatives that need assistance for a serious medical reason. Besides, EU law promotes equal sharing of child care and flexible working arrangements. In our system, Royal Decree Law 6/2019 has introduced some of these initiatives, so the Directive is not going to have an important impact in our national legislation. However, the new rules of the Directive are only minimun requirements and they should force the revision of some measures that have a negative impact in equal treatment, as parental leave according article 46.3 of the workers´ Statute. In the same way, it is necessary to make an efford to ensure work-life balance in a complex labour market and with a very different family models.