Under pressure to balance their
budgets, states are cutting government subsidies that help pay for child care
as reported on December 13 in The New York Times. The reduction threatens the
wellbeing of families by making it more difficult for parents to maintain their
jobs while caring for their children. One option to offset the impact of such
cuts may lie in increased provisions of workplace flexibility.
Research included in the Future of Children's Work and Family volume, released by Princeton's
Woodrow Wilson School and the Brookings Institution, finds workplace
flexibility is linked with engagement, satisfaction, retention, and better
health for employees; and higher productivity and a better "bottom line"
for employers. The volume also shows that providing short to moderate periods
of paid parental leave - from three to twelve months - for all workers is
unlikely to have negative repercussions in the labor market and is likely to
have positive benefits for child and family wellbeing.
In a global comparison, the data
presented in the volume suggest that guaranteeing paid parental leave as well
as paid leave when a child is sick is feasible for the United States without
jeopardizing its competitive economy or low unemployment rates in the future.
And perhaps contrary to popular opinion, the volume shows that when employees
are offered workplace flexibility, they tend to use it conservatively,
minimizing costs to employers.
"Allowing employees more control over their
hours and more flexibility to adjust hours or work location when family demands
arise can lead to increased employee productivity, satisfaction, and
retention," say issue editors Sara McLanahan of Princeton and Jane
Waldfogel of Columbia University. "Far from representing a cost to
employers, such policies, if well designed to take into account the needs of
both employers and employees, can yield benefits."
Paid leave and workplace flexibility
policies are particularly important for low-income workers, who are the least
likely to have access to flexibility policies. For these families, taking care
of their families can put their wages - and their jobs - at risk. Because
current welfare policies encourage low-income parents to work, workplace policies
that encourage job retention should follow.
In the face of unprecedented federal
government budget strains, the volume recommends initiatives with minimal costs
and maximum benefits. Namely, the volume recommends that state and local
governments pass paid leave initiatives (Connecticut recently became the first
state to require employers to provide paid sick leave); that employers
implement workplace flexibility policies that encourage "right to
request" and "compensatory time"; and that community organizations
think carefully about the ways they can adjust their work to better accommodate
working families by, for example, changing the hours they are open or providing
better coordination of care.
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