A new programme to subsidise the care of infants is designed to make it easier for women with children to rejoin the workforce.
Eleni Stamatoukou
A new programme to subsidise the care of infants is designed to make it easier for women with children to rejoin the workforce.
Family Affairs Deputy Minister Elena Rapty. Photo: Elena Rapti/Facebook.
The Greek government launched the “Neighbourhood Nannies” online platform on Monday to support working parents by enabling the creation of an organised, safe network of child carers across the country.
“The action aims to promote equality between men and women in employment through the harmonisation of professional and family life of working parents or parents in search of work,” says a notice published on Monday by the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family Affairs.
“We are doing it primarily for women, if they want to return to the labour market,” Minister Domna Michailidou said in a TV interview on April 26.
The programme offers 500 euros a month in financial assistance for childcare to parents who work full-time and 300 euros to parents who work part-time.
Deputy Minister Elena Rapti further explained: “The role of the programme is twofold: on the one hand, it helps mothers to remain professionally active after the birth of the child and on the other, it creates new employment opportunities for women and men who wish to work as caregivers, even from their home, with income and insurance.”
The programme, which covers the care of infants aged from two months to two-and-a-half years old, began as a pilot in 2022 and was expanded by 2024 to 62 municipalities throughout Greece; it now covers all 332 municipalities.
From Monday, the submission of applications to join the registry of guardians/nannies began. In two weeks’ time, the platform for parents to register interest will also open.
Applicants must have a clean criminal record, submit a letter from a psychiatrist, pathologist and dermatologist, and have at least completed elementary school. Relatives of the parents, such as grandparents who are already taking care of children, can also participate in the programne. Each guardian can take care of up to three children.
