Corporate demographic policy as a response to countrywide challenges for business

Abstract

In the context of negative demographic tendencies many European countries are facing, new measures are required to foster the reproduction of the population. These measures may be based on the concept of labour nature of parenting, which indeed requires many types of resources these days, such as financial, institutional, emotional as well as time. Parental labour is not only of personal nature, but also of social one, which means the outcome of parental labour is in demand in the society and that government should ensure conditions for its fulfilment. We believe government should not be the only agent of demographic policy. Our vision derives from the fact that the major consumer of human resources is business. We surveyed the residents of Russia and Armenia and identified their opinions on how business should contribute to address demographic and social challenges and whether it is necessary. The principal results are the following: 1) Armenian respondents voiced their dissatisfaction with those enterprises which do not pursue social and humanitarian aims in their work; 2) according to Russian respondents, not only the government, but also other institutions, most importantly, business should assist families; 3) among the ways business can contribute to address demographic issues are changing working hours, promoting flexibility in professional activities, etc. The results provided the basis for fundamental principles to initiate corporate demographic policy (CDP) in the countries facing negative demographic tendencies. The CDP aims are two-level: 1) global, namely, to foster results of parental labour, which is of importance for both state and society; 2) local, in particular, to develop the sense of loyalty among personnel, meaning present or future parents. Drawing on the results, we suggested a number of CDP principles, inter alia, 1) treating workers with children as people working two jobs, who simultaneously pursue their professional and parental careers; 2) choosing directions to implement the policy taking into account motives for parental labour among personnel of a particular organisation and the nature of parental labour itself; 3) "supplementary" nature of CDP measures, which presupposes flexibility in introducing those measures which are not pursued by the government. © ECIAIR 2020.All right reserved.