Session; Societal Issues of Work and Family
19
someone else; 47 percent had dependent care responsibilities.
[Cali Williams - cont.]
■ Women in dual-career families were doing most of the
housework, other than repairs (although men believed they were doing
more). This did not vary with age or salary level.
■ The No. 1 most difficult personal problem was finding quality
child care. (Independent studies support this finding, indicating only 12
to 14 percent of children are in child care considered to be good. But 35
to 40 percent of infants are in care considered bad or even harmful.)
■ On average, employees had access to only .66 of a possible five
dependent care programs. This number declined with the size of the
employee’s pay check.
■ The greatest predictor of whether a large company was “family-
friendly” was its recently having merged or downsized.
■ The average worker missed 3 days a year, due to child care
issues.
■ The spillover from job to home was much bigger than the
spillover from home to job.
■ Workers were willing to change employers or give up benefits,
to have access to worklife supports. But 18- to 24-year-olds were more
willing to make sacrifices in education or career than in personal life.
Whafs needed now?
Places to start include follow-up studies, the search for new
models, dialogue that reaches more workers and businesses, and
meaningful partnerships that are committed to addressing the issues.
Those responsible for most of the burgeoning growth in small
business are women. People are going to be working for women in
ways they never have before.
Patricia Hendel
vice president, National Association
of Commissions for Women;
executive director, HOPE;
former state representative, Conn.
For these and many other reasons, people are having to recognize
work-life issues aren’t just women’s problems. They’re family
concerns:
■ There is no clear direction on how to meet work-life issues.
What’s needed is collaborative efforts, to establish priorities for
attention and provide support in legislative hearings and the press.
For example, a privacy and family leave law has passed out of
committee and is headed for Congress. The legislation involved bus-
inesses with good leave policies—businesses who recognized happy
workers get more done and are, in fact, an asset to the bottom line.
Work - Life:
An Interplay
of Issues
This legislation is not all it could be. But once something is on the
books, we can work from there.