Is a “Father Friendly Workplace” Possible in the Middle East? A Personal Report from the Front

Work-life balance has been on the agenda for almost half a century throughout the Western, industrialized world. More recently, assisting working fathers to reconcile their career and family needs has also gained the support of governments, the social partners (labor and business associations), NGOs, and the media in North America, the European Union, Australia, Japan, and more recently in the new democracies of Europe and Latin America. The international business community has become aware that family-friendly hiring, scheduling, and promotion schemes are good for business. Expanding the logic of family friendliness from a uniquely women’s issue to a genuinely gender mainstreamed approach has boosted productivity, sales, and retention rates and thus benefited employers, employees, customers, and the public sector servicing all three. The bottom line doesn’t lie. In the case of the family-friendly workplace, the interests of profits and people go hand-in-hand.