Recently in Work & Family Category

The mainstream media loves to talk about "work-family balance." It tells personal stories about how hard it is to juggle deadlines and suppertimes, but rarely asks why that balance is so hard, and how it can be changed. Often, motherhood is when today’s young women first face serious job discrimination and the biases against mothers that are built into American culture, family policy and many marriages.

This inter-generational panel discussion seeks to shed light on discrimination against mothers in the workplace and focus on what can be done to change things for the better. The discussion is moderated by E.J. Graff, WSRC Resident Scholar, and participants include Dana Gershengorn, Neena Pathak (’08) and Mothers Movement Online editor Judith Stadtman Tucker.

Working While Mother: What they don’t tell you…and should
May 8, 2008, 12:30-2:00 PM
Brandeis University
Epstein Building, 515 South Street
Waltham, MA

For information, please contact Lisa Lynch, 781.736.8102 or llynch@brandeis.edu

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On February 13, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families held a hearing on the past success and future challenges of the Family and Medical Leave Act. A report from The Source newsletter (published by Women's Policy, Inc., a non-profit organization that tracks women's issues in Congress) highlights testimony by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Victoria Lipnic of the Department of Labor, Deborah Ness of the National Partnership for Women and Families, and Katheryn Elliot on behalf of the Society for Human Resources Management, a business-friendly professional association.

Tax credits can provide thousands of dollars to families struggling to make ends meet, but many low-income families don't benefit from child care and family tax credits simply because they don't know the credits exist. The National Women's Law Center has created a set of tax credit fact sheets for child care advocates and family service professionals to distribute in their communities. Online resources for parents are also available. Revised to reflect 2008 tax codes, the latest fact sheets include flyers on state credits in English, Spanish and other languages, information about federal tax credits, and a tool kit to help agencies and advocates develop a community tax credit outreach plan. All materials are available from the NWLC web site's Tax Credits Outreach page.

Find out about the family tax credits available in your state.

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The January issue of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network newsletter includes a full-length interview with Ellen Bravo, author of Taking On The Big Boys and former director of 9to5 National Association of Working Women. It's a nice complement to the MMO's August 2007 interview with the author. For example, when asked how to develop more equality between men and women at home, Bravo responds:

I have a saying: "Housework is work to be done by those that live in the house." It’s not mom’s work that others do or don’t help her with. More men would be involved in the home if they weren’t punished for it at work, so we need to change workplace policies. Secondly, assuming that men acknowledge women’s equality, it needs to be clear that men and women are not equal if the work done at home isn’t equal. This doesn’t just refer to chores, it also refers to thinking, analyzing, and arranging. There also must be an acceptance that both jobs are important and that the man’s job doesn’t take precedence.

The Sloan Work and Family Research Network was established to support research and teaching, promote best practices at the workplace, and inform state policy on issues that affect the lives of working families and the places where they work.

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