The Case for a Maternity Protection Social Insurance Scheme in Zimbabwe: A Theoretical Consideration

Maternity protection has gained salience in the last few decades as women of child-bearing age are increasingly joining the labour market. Policies that ensure maternity protection schemes that include paid maternity leave are important in safeguarding the health and livelihood of women and children. Research-based evidence generally suggests that maternity protection is associated with higher rates of breastfeeding and vaccinations in low and middle income countries. Longer paid maternity leave may reduce infant and maternal mortality. With more and more women of child-bearing age entering the workforce, governments it is incumbent for governments to adapt policies that guarantee that employed mothers and their families are able to provide essential care during pregnancy, delivery and lactation, without losing income and employment opportunities. Inadequate maternity protection undermines maternal and infant health care, thereby forcing families into catastrophic and impoverishing healthcare expenditure. Manifestly, more effort is needed to bridge the gap between international aspirations for maternity protection, as reflected in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Agenda and the poignant realities in low income countries. Zimbabwe, like most developing countries does not have a maternity protection social insurance scheme for working women, in spite of its critical importance to the well-being of women and children as well as to social and economic development. This paper, thus, endeavours to present robust arguments for the development and introduction of a maternity protection scheme in Zimbabwe, while acknowledging that currently the country offers substantial maternity protection through constitutional and legislative provisions that enjoin the state and employers to ensure that there is a considerable measure of maternity protection. Although the constitutional and legislative provisions provide a significant foundation for maternity protection policies and programmes, they are not adequate as they do not sufficiently address the issue address of maternal and child healthcare and cash benefits to cater the costs attendant to maternity.