Balancing Paid Work & FamilyA growing share of the work force has family responsibilities.Problems of balancing family demands & employment can occur throughout the life cycle.When workers require a lot of time & energy for family responsibilities, less time & energy may be available for market work.Given women’s greater role as caregivers, they would be the main beneficiaries of family friendly policies.PowerPoint PresentationSlide 7Examples of Family Friendly PoliciesFamily LeaveFamily & Medical Leave Act of 1993Slide 11Effect of Family Leave on Employment & EarningsAlternative Work SchedulesFlextimeNonstandard Work SchedulesPart-Time EmploymentJob SharingHome-Based WorkFlexible Benefit PlansCafeteria plansFlexible Spending AccountsPolicies for CouplesSlide 23Child CareChild Care & Development Block GrantFederal Tax Subsidies for Child CareDependent Care Tax CreditChild Tax CreditEarned Income CreditSlide 30Slide 31On- or Near-Site Day CareFor school-aged childrenA Family Policy Agenda to Enhance Families’ Transactional Interdependencies Over the Life SpanThree TrendsGrowing income disparitiesSlide 37Slide 38Slide 39Some factors contributing to the increase in wage & income disparities includeWorking Mothers & Child CareSlide 42Baby Boomers & Social SecurityPossible adjustments to keep the Social Security System in tact includeSlide 45Some consequences of the widened income distributionVotingPossible Items for a Family Policy AgendaSlide 49Balancing Paid Work & FamilyA growing share of the work force has family responsibilities.There are(1) more two-earner families, including those with small children, &(2) more single parent families.Problems of balancing family demands & employment can occur throughout the life cycle.•When workers are young they often need to care for small children.•Later in life, workers may need to assist teenage children in solving problems or help grown children establish themselves.•Workers may also have to solve the problems of aging parents.When workers require a lot of time & energy for family responsibilities, less time & energy may be available for market work.The result may be reduced wages.Since women often have greater family responsibilities than men do, the effects on women are likely to be greater.Some women respond to these competing demands by taking part-time rather than full-time jobs.Women who continue to work full-time may face a significant time squeeze.Given women’s greater role as caregivers, they would be the main beneficiaries of family friendly policies.Adoption of these policies would make it easier for them to remain attached to the labor force and succeed on the job, while meeting family obligations.This would, in turn, increase incentives for women & employers to invest in women’s human capital.Men who already shoulder sizable housework & childcare responsibilities would benefit from family friendly policies, & other men would find it easier to do a larger share. So family friendly policies would be expected to promote a more equal division of labor in the household.Conflicts between employees with & without families usually disappear. Many employees without children later have children & the children of the other employees grow up. Providing employees with scheduling flexibility makes them more committed & productive at work because they can balance their lives.Examples of Family Friendly Policies•Family leave•Alternative work schedules•Flexible benefit plans•Policies for couples•Child careFamily LeaveFamily leave allows workers to take time off from their jobs because of pregnancy, childbirth, infant care, and tending to ill family members.Without such a policy, workers may have to handle these problems by giving up their jobs, losing earnings, and accrued benefits and seniority.Because this policy makes it possible to deal with problems without giving up the job, it increases incentives for women to invest in firm-specific training and for employers to provide them with opportunities to do so.Family & Medical Leave Act of 1993The FMLA allows eligible workers to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for birth or adoption; acquiring a foster child; illness of a child, spouse, or parent; or their own illness.During the leave, the firm must continue health insurance coverage, & afterwards, the employee must be given the same or an equivalent position with the same benefits, pay, & other conditions of employment.The Family & Medical Leave Act applies to public & private sector workers who have been with the same employer for at least one year & worked at least 1,250 hours.The law only applies to firms with at least 50 workers.A later study found that, for most employers, compliance with the FMLA entailed few if any costs.Effect of Family Leave on Employment & EarningsEmpirical evidence indicates that the FMLA may have had a small positive effect on employment and no effect on wages.Additional leave provided by employers has had a positive effect on both wages & employment of women who become mothers.Where leave is paid and of medium or long duration, as in many other countries, there is some evidence of negative effects on employment and earnings. These effects may be attributable to depreciation of human capital.Alternative Work Schedules•Provide greater flexibility for workers to take care of family responsibilities and arrange their personal lives more conveniently.• Examples:FlextimeNonstandard work schedulesPart-time employmentJob sharingHome-based workFlextimeAllows some degree of variation in work schedules at the discretion of the employee, ranging from changes in starting & quitting times to variation in the number of hours worked per day, week, or pay period.Nonstandard Work SchedulesEmployees work rotating shifts, weekends, or nights.Unlike flextime, these schedules are typically set by employers rather than employees.Part-Time EmploymentAdvantage: offers more flexibility than a strict 9-to-5 schedule.Disadvantage: frequently has few fringe benefits (such as health care), poor compensation, & few opportunities for promotion.Job Sharing 2 individuals sharing one positionA disadvantage for the worker is that he/she only receives partial or no benefitsHome-Based Work•Partly the result of improvements in computers and communications.•Lower costs of transportation, clothing, child care & elder care.•Need to have a formal agreement between employer and employee regarding