Public Policy:

Meddling with the FMLA

Research & Reports:

Who's minding the kids -- and how much does it cost?

Most US children live in two-parent families

Today's first-time mothers are older, more educated, and more likely to be employed than first-time moms in 1970

Men and housework; fertility trends in the United States

In the News:

National Advocates fro Pregnant Women responds to New York Times

In MMO Blogworthy:

New policy brief on time as a resource for working families

Only in the US: The perplexing case of missing maternity coverage

In a single day, US domestic violence programs served 53,304

Feminism, women, and the vote

Most states fail to protect children in family home day care settings

NWLC offers new fact sheets on tax credits for working families

Work-Family Research Network interview with Ellen Bravo

Meddling with the FMLA

As previously reported by the MMO, in December 2006 the US Department of Labor issued a Request for Information and public comments on the administration of the Family and Medical Leave Act. The RFI was largely a reaction to employer complaints that administration of the Act places an unreasonable burden on employers and widespread abuse of FMLA leave is hurting businesses. Advocates for workers and families feared that the DOL Request was a preparatory step to justify rules changes to limit workers rights and access to leave, such as narrowing the definition of serious medical conditions currently covered by the Act. The majority of stakeholder comments in response to the 2006 RFI were in favor of preserving or expanding current FMLA regulations to strengthen worker protections and increase the number of employees covered by the Act.

In response to continuing pressure from the employer lobby, on February 11 the DOL released a 127-page document detailing proposed amendments to FMLA rules. Although business reporters have described the proposed changes as "minor", a close review by the National Partnership for Women and Families determined that "the Department of Labor is suggesting a number of changes to certain reporting, certification, and medical requirements that could make obtaining FMLA leave more difficult and cumbersome for employees. Additionally, the Department of Labor is proposing giving employers more time to respond to FMLA requests and more ways to deny or delay FMLA leave." Of particular concern are new rules that will give employers direct access to employee's health care providers and changes to reporting requirements that increase the likelihood that unscheduled leave-taking allowed under current provisions will be denied.

The proposed regulations include a critical expansion to the FMLA to guarantee close kin of wounded service members up to 26 weeks of unpaid, job protected leave. The National Partnership recommends that the Bush Labor Department "issue regulations for this expansion right away so that more military family members can have access to this leave."

National Partnership for Women & Families
www.nationalpartnership.org

National Partnership issue summary and sample comments:
Family and Medical Leave Update: FMLA Rights at Risk
"We know -- and the Department of Labor knows -- that law is working well for both employers and workers as it is currently written. But the Bush Labor Department has now put our FMLA rights at risk by proposing new regulations that would make it harder for workers to access FMLA leave."

Expansion of the FMLA for Military Families

Overview of Proposed Regulations:
Restrictive and Non-Restrictive Rule Changes

Related articles:

Women's Policy Institute reports on FMLA Hearing
MMO Blogworthy, 02.16.08

Time to Expand, Not Gut, the FMLA
Ellen Bravo, Huffington Post, 02.12.08
"Here's what gets me: all these efforts to gut or whittle the FMLA make us struggle to hang on to what we already won, in the hopes that we'll forget how meager that was in the first place. The rest of the world, including the developing world, has left us in the dust."

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Who's minding the kids -- and how much does it cost?

Detailed tables released by the US Census Bureau on February 28 show that among 11.3 million children under 5 with employed mothers, nearly half received child care from a parent, grandparent, or other relative while mothers were at work (figures are based on 2005 data). One-quarter of preschoolers attended an organized day care or preschool facility while their moms were on the job; only 4 percent of preschoolers with employed mothers received care from a nanny or babysitter in their own home. The 2005 figures on child care arrangements are consistent with recent trends, although there has been a significant decline in the percentage of children under 5 in non-relative child care arrangements since 1985, when 28 percent of preschoolers with employed mothers received non-relative care, compared to 16 percent in 2005.

The most distressing finding from the Census Bureau's new release (Who's Minding the Kids: Child Care Arrangements 2005) concerns weekly child care costs paid by families with employed mothers. While families with above-poverty incomes spent just 6 percent of their monthly household income on child care in 2005, families with below-poverty incomes spent 29 percent -- up from 26 percent in 2002. (Cost estimates included child care expenditures for all children under 15 in a household). Average child care spending for working poor families was $90/week in 2005, while non-poor families spent $109/week.

US Census Bureau
www.census.gov

Nearly Half of Preschoolers Receive Child Care from Relatives
US Census Bureau press release, 02.28.08

Who's Minding the Kids?: Child Care Arrangements 2005
Detailed tables

For more information on child care arrangements and costs:

National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies
www.naccrra.org

Parents and the High Price of Child Care: 2007 Update
NACCRA, 2007 (index)
"In every region of the United States, average monthly child care fees for an infant are higher than the average amount that families spend on food. In nearly every state, child care fees for two children at any age exceed the median rent cost, and in nine states are even higher than the average monthly mortgage payment. In 43 states, the average annual price for child care for an infant in a child care center is higher than a year’s tuition at a public college…Child care is particularly unaffordable for single parents. The average annual price of care for two children (one infant and one preschooler) ranges from 47 percent to 113 percent of the state median income for single parents. In 48 states, the average price of care for two children (one preschooler and one infant) would be greater than 50 percent of the median household income for single parents." Full report includes state-level estimates, 31 pages in .pdf

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Most US children live in two-parent families

In 2004, 70 percent of children in the United States (51.2 million) lived with two parents, and most children living with two parents (87 percent, or 44.5 million) lived with their biological mother and father. Of the 19.3 million children under 18 living with a lone parent, 88 percent (16.9 million) lived with their mother. Asian (87 percent) and White (78 percent) children were most likely to live with two parents, while African American children were least likely to live in two-parent households (38 percent).

According to a February 2008 report on the Living Arrangements of Children (US Census Bureau), mothers were more likely than fathers to live with one or more of their biological child under age 18. 37.8 million mothers lived with at least one of their own minor children in 2004, compared to 30.2 million fathers. 36 percent of children living with a mother only fell below the poverty level, compared to 17 percent of children living with fathers only and 10 percent of children living with two married parents. The report also includes detailed information about different living arrangements of children living with grandparents.

An chart of historical trends in children's living arrangements shows a pronounced increase in the number of children living in mother-only families since 1970:

The data from 1880 to 1970 show that the distribution of children’s living arrangements changed little. The proportion of children who lived without parents declined from 6 percent in 1880 to about 3 percent in 1970. During this same period, the proportion of children who lived with their mothers only increased from 8 percent to 11 percent. Between 83 percent and 85 percent of children lived with two parents during this entire period.

Major shifts in living arrangements occurred between 1970 and 1990, when the proportion of children living only with their mother doubled from 11 percent to 22 percent. Since 1990, the changes in children’s living arrangements have leveled off.

The 20-page report and detailed tables are available from the Census Bureau web site.

US Census Bureau
www.census.gov

Living Arrangements of Children: 2004
Rose M. Kreider, US Census Bureau, February 2008
20 pages, in .pdf

Detailed tables

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Today's first-time mothers are older, more educated, and more likely to be employed than first-time moms in 1970

An recent analysis by the US Census Bureau tracks changes in maternity leave and employment patterns of first-time mothers between 1961 and 2003. The report suggests several noteworthy trends:

• Mothers average age at first birth increased from 21.4 years in 1970 to 24.9 years in 2000. The percentage of first-time births to women over 30 also increased, from 4 percent in 1970 to 24 percent in 2000.

• In 2000, one-quarter of first-time mothers had completed 16 or more years of education, compared with 9 percent in 1970. Among first-time mothers age 30 to 34, the proportion completing 16 or more years of school rose from 15 percent in 1970 to 43 percent in 2000.

• 74 percent of mothers whose first birth occurred between 2001 and 2003 had worked for at least one six-month period in their lives, compared to 60 percent in the early 1960s. However, most of the increase in the proportion of previously-employed first time mothers took place between 1965 and 1990; since then, no major changes have occurred. In 2003, 90 percent of women who were 30 or older at the time of first birth had at some point been employed for at least six consecutive months, compared to 55 percent of first-time mothers under 22.

• In 2003, 67 percent of first-time mothers worked full- or part-time while pregnant compared with 44 percent in 1965-1965. Most (80 percent) of first-time mothers in 2001-2003 who worked during pregnancy worked until one month or less before birth, compared to 35 percent in 1961-1965.

• In 2001-2003, 49 percent of first-time mothers who worked during pregnancy had access to some type of paid maternity leave (any combination of paid maternity, sick, vacation, and other paid leave), compared to 36 percent in 1981-1985.

• Among first-time mothers who returned to the same employer after birth, 78 percent worked the same number of hours as they had prior to giving birth, and 91 percent received the same level of pay (2001-2002). However, for mothers who returned to work with a different employer, only 53 percent worked the same number of hours as before birth and only 30 percent received the same level of pay. While 98 percent of mother who returned to their pre-birth employer returned to jobs at the same or a higher skill level, only 82 percent of those who returned to work with a different employer held jobs requiring the same or a higher level of skill. However, mothers who returned to a different employer were more likely to receive a higher level of pay (35 percent) than those who returned to their pre-birth employer (7 percent).

• Among women who worked during pregnancy, 17 percent of women with a first birth in 1961-1965 returned to work within three months after their child's birth, compared to 46 percent in 1981-1984 and 58 percent in 2000-2002.

• Mothers with some college or a Bachelor's degree or higher were most likely to receive paid leave before or after their first birth in 2001-2003 (49-60 percent), while fewer than one-half (39 percent) of mothers with a high-school education, and less than one-quarter (22 percent) of mothers who did not complete high school received paid maternity leave.

Although the study offers an abundance of information about trends in women's employment patterns before and after a first birth, the Census Bureau's 2008 maternity leave report reveals nothing that is new or unexpected (similar findings have been suggested by several other studies). Perhaps most importantly, the data set includes only the experience of first-time mothers -- other analyses of women's fertility and maternal employment trends suggest that fewer women return to the same level of employment after the second and subsequent births.

US Census Bureau
www.census.gov

Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers: 1961–2003
Tallese D. Johnson, US Census Bureau, February 2008
20 pages in .pdf

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Men and housework; fertility trends in the United States

Two new briefing papers from the Council on Contemporary Families highlight the dynamics of changing families in the United States. Demographer Steven Martin provides an analysis of vital statistics on US fertility that raises questions about conventional wisdom (and media spin) on trends in childbearing rates among married and unmarried women, while sociologists Oriel Sullivan and Scott Coltrane argue that the slow but steady increase in the number of hours men devote to housework and childcare should be acknowledged as substantial progress toward gender equality, not evidence of a stalled revolution.

Addressing the rising trend in US fertility rates -- in 2006, fertility in the United States reached the replacement rated (an average of 2.1 children per woman) for the first time in 35 years -- Martin explains that the widely-reported phenomenon of very affluent couples favoring larger families has not had an impact on national fertility rates. "The high proportion of 3 and 4 child families among the super-rich can affect the demographics in parts of Manhattan, but since it is confined to the very top 1.3 percent of households [with an annual income of $400,000 or greater], it cannot explain measurable shifts in fertility at the national level." Moreover, he writes, "historians point out that the super rich have historically tended to have more children than the middle layers of society, so this is hardly as unprecedented as some observers have assumed."

Martin also notes that while important demographic data on childbearing among non-US-born and immigrant women is missing, his number-crunching suggests that slightly higher fertility rates among this group account for only a small part of the recent fertility rise. In fact, he found that the recent increase in fertility "is concentrated among a very non-traditional part of the female population:"

Almost all of the increase in births from 2005 to 2006 was in nonmarital births…Whatever the other issues associated with non-marital childbearing, it seems to be an important part of what has pushed America's fertility above the replacement rate. Most of these nonmarital births are to women in their 20s and 30s. Birth rates of teens are lower than they were in 1991.

However, it's a bad idea to put too much stock in the recent media stories on the burgeoning number of thirty-something professional women who beat the biological clock by opting for single motherhood, or to celebrate the trend toward non-marital childbearing as feminist progress. Martin notes that "despite the overall rise in non-marital births, women who pursue higher education are less likely than other women to have a child out of wedlock," meaning that just as with super-rich families spawning super-sized broods, the emergence of a distinctive demographic of securely middle-class "single mothers by choice" is not a significant population trend.

Citing social research indicating that "more couples are sharing family tasks than ever before," Oriel Sullivan and Scott Coltrane argue that social scientists and the public "underestimated the amount of change going on behind the scenes and the growing willingness of men to adapt to their wives' new behaviors and values." Based on a review of research on men's changing family roles and non-work time use, they contend that recent studies suggesting that the gender revolution has stalled on the homefront were "based on unrealistic hopes for instant transformation."

Obviously, one way to see the glass of gender equity as half-full rather than half-empty is to lower expectations. But Sullivan and Coltrane have a valid point: from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, academic and popular literature on shared work and parenting advanced the idealistic premise that the normalization of married mothers' workforce participation would inevitably be followed by swift adjustments from men and society. According to Sullivan and Coltrane's corrective perspective,

Researchers…did not take a sufficiently long view of change over time. Our ongoing studies of couple relationships reveal instead that change has been continuous and significant, not merely in younger couples who begin their relationship with more flexible ideas about gender, but also in older couples where the wife has worked long enough to change her husband's values and behaviors (Sullivan 2006). We believe that the transformation of marriage that has occurred in the comparatively short period of 40 years is too great a break from the past to be dismissed as a slow and grudging evolution that has not fundamentally changed family dynamics. Men and women may not be fully equal yet, but the rules of the game have been profoundly and irreversibly changed.

The real stalled revolution in America, the co-authors argue, "is not taking place in families but in the highest circles of our economic and political elites…families have made little headway in getting the kind of family friendly policies that are taken for granted in most other advanced industrial countries. Even as American couples' beliefs and desires about gender equity have grown to be among the highest in the world, America's work policies and social support systems for working parents are among the lowest."

Not all of Sullivan and Coltrane's colleagues agree with their rosy conclusion about the glacial pace of change regarding men's investment in family time. Work-life scholar Paula England remarks that the authors downplay "a broader pattern of deep asymmetry in gender-related change such that women move into traditionally male roles more than men move into traditionally female activities." For every one hour women have increased their paid work, she writes, "men have increased their household work or child care only a small fraction of an hour… Until we change how much culture, government, and employers reward the activities and jobs women historically did, it will be hard to get men to do them." (CCF scholars' critiques of Sullivan and Coltrane's analysis are included with the online article.)

Council on Contemporary Families
www.contemporaryfamilies.org

Men's changing contribution to housework and child care
Oriel Sullivan and Scott Coltrane, Council on Contemporary Families, March 2008

Recent Changes in Fertility Rates in the United States: What Do They Tell Us about American's Changing Families?
Steven Martin, Council on Contemporary Families, 02.11.08

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National Advocates fro Pregnant Women
responds to New York Times

A March 15 story in the New York Times reported on a crusade by a district attorney in Covington County, Alabama to prosecute and incarcerate women who use illegal drugs while pregnant. While alarming to anyone concerned with protecting pregnant women's civil and human rights, the article ("In Alabama, a Crackdown on Pregnant Drug Users" by Adam Nossiter), was reasonably well balanced but failed to cite legal experts or sources on research-based evidence of the effects of drug use during pregnancy.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women offers a corrective commentary and call to action on the NAPW blog (Prosecutions in Alabama? Say No! March 17). Stating that "every leading medical and public health group to take a position on the issue opposes prosecution of pregnant women and new mothers as counterproductive to both maternal and fetal health," the legal advocacy group adds that

There are many reasons to oppose the prosecution of pregnant women and new mothers. These prosecutions, if upheld would create legal precedent for the finding that women, upon becoming pregnant lose their civil and human rights. If a pregnant woman can be viewed as a child abuser before she ever gives birth, or as a murderer because she can not guarantee a healthy birth outcome, she ceases to exist as a full human being and full rights bearing citizen.

For more information about trends in the prosecution of pregnant women, check out the resources and fact sheets from the NAPW web site.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women
http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org

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New policy brief on time as a resource for working families
The Sloan Work and Family Research Network has released Providing Working Families with an Important Resource: Time, the latest briefing paper in a continuing series on work-life policy issues.

Only in the US: The perplexing case of missing maternity coverage
An important story from Newhouse News Service reports on the common practice among private insurers to exclude maternity coverage from individual policies.

In a single day, US domestic violence programs served 53,304
The 2007 National Census of Domestic Violence Services found that in one day, 53,303 domestic violence victims received services from local programs, while over 7,000 requests for services were not met due to staff and funding shortages.

Feminism, women, and the vote
Laura Flanders offers a particularly unsparing account of Clinton's actual record on promoting the welfare of women and families, criticizing the candidate's support for trade policies which encourage "a global sweatshop economy that has all but eradicated the right to unionize in most of the world," and her endorsement of the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act (aka "Welfare-to-Work").

Most states fail to protect children in family home day care settings
Child care provided in family home child care settings is one of the largest segments of the child care industry, with nearly two million U.S. children spending time in family home-based care each week. According to a new analysis of state regulations to promote the safety and quality of family home care, most states are dropping the ball on protecting the health and development of young children in home care settings.

NWLC offers new fact sheets on tax credits for working families
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.

Work-Family Research Network interview with Ellen Bravo
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.

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