Family Values Mean Paying Workers Enough to Support Their Families

by James Parks, Aug 15, 2006

Help Wanted: Parent of young children to work long hours, nights and weekends for low wages. Must be willing to give up pay every time you take a sick day, vacation day or personal day off. Must be able to sacrifice time with children, sick elderly relatives and spouses. Send applications to the 24-hour global economy.

Although no employer would print such a classified, it’s a job description that’s a reality for many U.S. workers trying to balance work and home. Most often, work is winning out, pushing up productivity while making our families pay the price.

Consider these disturbing stats culled by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) in a new study, Getting Punched: The Job and Family Clock.

• A study for the Gates Foundation this year found one in five (22 percent) of school dropouts said they left school because their parents were working and they had to take care of younger siblings or other tasks at home.
• A Harvard University study shows for each hour their parents work between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., children are 16 percent more likely to score at the bottom on standardized math tests.
• The same Harvard study says children are three times more likely to be suspended from school if their parents work at night.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports some two-thirds (65 percent) of families with children are headed by two employed parents or by a single working parent. In the 1960s, 70 percent of families with children had at least one parent at home full-time.

Every two years, the AFL-CIO conducts its Ask a Working Woman survey, asking women their thoughts on the issues most crucial to them, such as the rising cost of health care, jobs, wages and their children’s future. More than 22,000 women have responded to this year’s online survey—and judging by their comments, they share many frustrations with employers who offer meager benefits and pay and little flexibility to take care of their families.

Among the comments we received, an anonymous respondent writes:

Most people assume that because I am a woman, there is someone (husband, parents, etc.) who will take care of me or help me. This is not true. I wish my job provided me with more time off, more flexible hours, the ability to work from home and a better salary.

From Worthington, Minn., Louise writes:

Trying to balance my career and family life is next to impossible, with good jobs being a 70-mile commute….My own family spends $400 per month on gasoline so I can work a job just to get health care. 

One-third of the respondents to the Ask a Working Woman online survey work evenings, nights and weekends. Two in five women work different shifts than their partners or husbands, and that percentage goes up among African American women: nearly half work different shifts than their significant other. Not only are they working erratic hours, working women also are holding more than one job. More than 20 percent of women surveyed work two or more jobs.

When every politician and advertiser is promoting family values, why can’t parents find time to spend with their children or loved ones?

The CLASP report says public policy and employer attitudes are stuck in the past. The United States lags behind many other nations that have enacted paid leave laws and promoted flexible scheduling:

Some employers may view low-wage workers as expendable and in endless supply, and perceive flexible, responsive scheduling as a benefit reserved for their more mobile, higher-wage workers. But this perspective is largely a vestige of an earlier time; today’s economy is increasingly service oriented.

In fact, according to workforce experts Sandra Burud and Marie Tumolo, “employees are increasingly the best way for companies to achieve and sustain competitive advantage—more so than traditional sources…such as new products, technological superiority, and regulated markets.” Companies must understand that “workers who are expected to care for customers do that better when they feel they are cared about by their organizations.”

But many employers still don’t get it. In a 2005 survey by the recruiting and staffing company Sipheron, 60 percent of employees said issues of time and schedule flexibility were very important in whether they stayed in a job, while only 35 percent of employers thought so.

Those that do get it—the ones that respond to workers’ needs on the number of hours on the job and predictable start and stop times and paid leave—had lower turnover, higher productivity and lower health care bills due to stress, the CLASP report argues.

Americans have little faith corporations will address the time crunch, and want government to step in. A 2004 survey by the New America Foundation found 60 percent of the public thinks government ought to play a role in reducing stress on America’s families. A big part of that stress is that Americans, on average, work nine weeks longer every year than do workers in Western Europe, according to Take Back Your Time, an advocacy group promoting shorter work hours. The group has designated Oct. 24, with nine weeks to go before the end of the year, as “Take Back Your Time Day.”

Because so few employers get it, CLASP urges a strong role for government in setting standards and rules for flexible schedules and more paid leave. Their recommendations include:

• Establish minimum standards for paid leave.
• Conduct model flexible scheduling programs in federal agencies.
• Build public awareness of the benefits of responsive scheduling.
• Recognize businesses that already support workers’ dual responsibilities to family and work.
• Offer tax breaks as incentives for employers to reorganize jobs to reflect workers’ needs to punch a clock that allows for both family and job time.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)