So which is it: Has the combination of the recent recession and today's successor neo-robust economy-cum-tight job market doomed family-friendly corporate programs? Or, conversely, are American workplaces becoming family-friendlier?
To hear the news media tell it, family-friendly policies borne of women's lemming-like mass migration from the home front to the work force three decades ago are receding like a waning tide.
Consider this May 2004 missive from USA Today: "The percentage of employers offering paid family leave dropped from 27 percent in 2001 to 23 percent last year, according to (the) Society for Human Resource Management. ... Those offering flexible work hours tumbled from 64 percent in 2002 to 55 percent in 2003. Job sharing dropped from 26 percent in 2001 to 22 percent last year."
The newspaper went on to cite a Commerce Clearing House report showing, "Telecommuting fell from 47 percent to 45 percent (between 2002 and 2003). And those offering compressed workweeks, which generally let workers put in their hours over four days rather than five, slipped from 49 percent in 2002 to 40 percent last year."
As if that news weren't bad enough for second shifters (those juggling work and family), The Wall Street Journal reported last week another seemingly regressive trend. The Journal noted new, apparently insurmountable obstacles faced by formerly high-powered career women trying to resurrect careers - after taking years off to raise young children.
"The sluggish economy has made jobs scarce for many well-qualified candidates, let alone those with gaps in their resumes. With advances in technology, women who have taken even a few years off likely have fallen behind or feel out-of-touch. The job-hopping of the past decade has meant many of their old professional contacts, mentors and networks are dispersed."
Reading these stories, one comes away with this impression: The future of "family-friendly" policies is about as sanguine as the future for velocipedes. Explanations and theories for this trend abound.
Perhaps job scarcity has muzzled the formerly burgeoning family-friendly industry. Perhaps corporations are merely responding to national politics (that is, the Clinton-era "feminized" politics, whereas President George W. Bush has steered the nation in a decidedly macho direction). Perchance some corporations found the onslaught of flextime, telecommuting and four-day workweeks not to be the money-maker and profit-booster they were touted to be.
Lastly, perhaps now that we're supposedly in economic expansion mode, family-friendly policies such as flextime and job-sharing will come back with volcanic force.
While drumming one's fingers waiting for that comeback, however, nothing succeeds like duress. If women want the freedom to waltz in and out of the work force as it suits them (and their care-giving responsibilities), there is one sure way to obtain it: Make sure men want and make use of that same freedom.
The media made much of a 1993 Census report claiming there were some 2 million "stay-at-home dads." In fact, the latest Census report on family living arrangements (March 2002) notes 1.6 million of those "full-time dads" worked outside the home. These same "stay-at-home" dads did, actually, provide their kids with more childcare than anyone outside the nuclear family. But this, "while their spouses were at work." Thus they were hardly full-time dads.
Actually, the latest Census reports "children under age 15 living with both parents were 56 times as likely to live with a stay- at-home mother while their father was in the labor force" as the other way around. As long as the proportions differ so radically, so, too, will workplace opportunities.
Granted, many working mothers of young children feel driven to quit work.
Fathers less so. Many women returning to work when their kids are older are doing so more out of economic necessity than out of desire for high-powered careers.
At the same time, full-time parenthood for men is still stigmatized by society and thus less of an option for them, even for those who would prefer it. But, until women insist on shared responsibilities at home, they won't achieve shared opportunity at work in anything close to reasonable percentages.
Email This Page!