work-life reports:

A tale of two clocks:
New report stresses the need for paid leave and workplace flexibility

New report tracks increase in "family responsibility discrimination" lawsuits

Women's advancement in corporate leadership slows

The case for paid leave for family caregivers

New guides on workplace supports for parents of children with
special needs

recent research:

Left behind by welfare reform

2006 Kids Count Data Book now online
National trends in child well-being no longer showing steady improvement

New report calms hysteria about boys falling behind

Harvard study examines impact of partner violence on health
of pregnant women and newborns

money:

Taxes are a woman's issue

marriage& family:

Life Without Children:
Marriage proponents lament passing of the "century of the child"

workplace:

Selected news and commentary about women, work and|
the changing workforce

motherhood beat:

Breastfeeding buzz, NY moms let loose, "baby bump" insanity and other articles and commentary about motherhood and mothering

men, sex & babies:

The changing face of fatherhood, the difference between a womb and a wallet, men who hate sex and much, much more

women:

Backward drag, young feminists, thoughts on Linda Hirshman, more

reproductive health & rights:

New report on abstinence-only education funding

The ugly truth about crisis pregnancy centers

Other notable news and commentary on reproductive health & rights

my kind of politics:

Race is always part of the story; the end of small politics; American greed

New report tracks increase in
"family responsibility discrimination" lawsuits

Discrimination against family caregivers can be blatant – as when employees are told "You can’t be a mother and a good employee" -- or subtle, as when employers assume a worker would not want to move for a promotion because of caring responsibilities. A new report from the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law finds that a growing number of workers who experience "family responsibilities discrimination" (FRD, pronounced "fred") are bringing lawsuits against their employers, and these cases appear to be more successful than most other types of employer bias cases. "We’ve seen an increase of nearly 400 percent in the last decade," remarked study author Mary C. Still in a July 2006 press release. "These kinds of cases used to be relatively rare, but are becoming much more common, as lawyers learn how to win and employees realize their rights to family time."

The report, Litigating the Maternal Wall: U.S. Lawsuits Charging Discrimination Against Workers with Family Responsibilities, documents more than 600 cases filed since the 1970s, with the majority occurring since 1990. Many of the cases involve workers who are mothers, but forty-three cases were filed by men caring for family members, including children, parents, and spouses.

Discrimination or biases against workers with caregiving responsibilities is behind the "maternal wall," the phenomenon of women's career stagnation due to the perception that mothers are not ideal workers. Recent scholarship has pointed to the maternal wall as significant factor the gender wage gap.

A full copy of the report is available from the Center for WorkLife Law web site.

Center for WorkLife Law
www.worklifelaw.org

Litigating the Maternal Wall:
U.S. Lawsuits Charging Discrimination Against Workers with Family Responsibilities
Mary C. Still, Center for WorkLife Law, 6.jul.06

Related articles:

Picking on Moms in the Workplace:
Parents and caregivers face professional hurdles but strike back in court
Betsy Stark, ABC News, 6.jul.06
"The good news for caregivers is that while employers may not all be family friendly, the courts increasingly are. Recent studies suggest that in both judge and jury trials, lawsuits that allege bias on the grounds of being a parent or caregiver are successful more often than the overall pool of discrimination suits." Includes interview with Joan Williams of the Center for WorkLife Law. Text transcript and video available.

In the Workplace, Little Things Mean a Lot
Charlotte Fishman, Women's eNews, 5.jul.06
The Supreme Court decision upholding a jury verdict in favor of a female forklift operator handed a momentous victory to working women everywhere, Charlotte Fishman says. Courts must now consider individual circumstances to determine level of harm. "Discrimination is a complex phenomenon and we know that the glass ceiling for women is held in place as much by micro-iniquities as it is by disparate treatment with clear economic consequences. In the workplace, as in life, even little things can mean a lot."

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Women's advancement in corporate leadership slows

According to the leading research and advisory organization working with businesses to expand opportunities for women at work, between 2002 and 2005 the growth in the percentage of corporate officer positions held by women reached a ten-year low, and 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies had no women among their top earners.

Catalyst's tenth anniversary census of corporate officers and top earners in the Fortune 500 found that women are still vastly underrepresented in senior leadership positions in U.S. business. At the ten-year estimated growth trend of 0.82 percentage points per year, it will take women 40 years to achieve parity with men in these positions. According to the report, women held only 6.4 percent of top earner positions, up 1.2 percentage points from 2002.

The 2005 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500 found that over the last three years, the percentage of corporate officer positions held by women increased by a total of just 0.7 percentage points to 16.4 percent. According to a Catalyst press release, these findings suggest the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies have yet to understand the compelling business case for diversity or to take meaningful actions to address it.

The report recommends that Fortune 500 companies take steps to increase the number of women in leadership by explaining and communicating broadly the business case for diversity and inclusion, setting high expectations for the advancement of women, recognizing and curbing stereotyping of women, and ensuring that women are evaluated on the basis of productivity and performance rather than perception, which often disadvantages women in hiring and promotion for high-level positions.

Catalyst
www.catalystwomen.org

Press Release
Fact Sheet
Executive Summary -- 11 pages in .pdf

Also from Catalyst:

Women "Take Care," Men "Take Charge:"
Stereotyping of U.S. Business Leaders Exposed
Fact sheet, 3 pages in .pdf

Related articles:

Women Pick Up Small Change on Wall Street
Nan Mooney, Women's eNews, 29.jun.06
On Wall Street, gender bias on the job is apparently not about the money. Despite Morgan Stanley's huge sex discrimination settlement two years ago, only a micro-uptick in women's advancement has been detected.

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The case for paid leave for family caregivers

Approximately 45 million Americans have responsibility for caring for an ill, elderly or disabled adult in their family or community, and 60 percent of family caregivers also work for pay. A new and informative issue brief from the Family Caregiver Alliance discusses the benefits of paid family and medical leave for this population of workers. The briefing paper also outlines the development and initial implementation of California’s landmark paid leave law, and its usage by workers who are juggling the competing demands of jobs and caring for family members who have chronic or debilitating health conditions. The brief also summarizes the progress towards similar statutes at the federal and state levels.

Family Caregiver Alliance
www.caregiver.org

Support for Working Family Caregivers:
Paid Leave Policies in California and Beyond
Family Caregiver Alliance, June 2006
Issue brief, 12 pages in .pdf

Also from the Family Caregiver Alliance:

Selected Caregiver Statistics

Women and Caregiving: Facts and Figures

Related articles:

The cost of caregiving: A personal tale
Robert Powell, MarketWatch, 20,jul.06
"I have learned that the true cost of caregiving in this country goes far beyond the statistics about absenteeism, partial absenteeism, workday interruptions and unpaid leave."

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New guides on workplace supports
for parents of children with special needs

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, families are caring for a child with special health care needs in one out of every five U.S. households. The NYC-based Families and Work Institute recently partnered with Massachusetts General Hospital for Children to produce and distribute information for employees with special needs children and their employers.

The guide for employees addresses the types of benefits and policies that may be available and how to access available supports: "For working parents caring for a child with a special need, balancing the needs of their child with the demands of their work life can be challenging. Taking full advantage of all services and supports available to them and their family is crucial. One potential source of benefits and services is a parent’s employer. Many worksites offer benefits and work-family supports that parents may find helpful. So it is important to understand and consider what may be available through the workplace."

The guide for employers "explores how the care of a child with a chronic condition or disability can impact an employee’s work life and describes ways in which employers can address the workplace needs of these employees."

Children with Special Needs and the Workplace:
A Guide for Employers
18 pages, in.pdf

Workplace Benefits for Families of Children with Special Needs:
A Guide for Employees
20 pages, in .pdf

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2006 Kids Count Data Book now online

According to a new report, national trends in child well-being are no longer showing the steady improvement seen in the late 1990s. The full findings from the 2006 Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation are now available in multiple formats from the Kids Count web site.

The annual Data Book shows that three out of 10 child well-being indicators have worsened since 2000. There were more than 13 million children living in poverty in 2004 -- an increase of 1 million over four years. There was also an increase in the percentage of low-birthweight babies between 2000 and 2003 and an increase in the number of children living in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment.

On the good news front, child and teen death rates have fallen, the teen birth rate has continued to decline, and the high school dropout rate has improved. In a state-by-state comparison of well-being indicators, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut were ranked as the best states for kids. New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi received the lowest ranking.

Each year, the Data Book reports on the needs and conditions of America’s most disadvantaged children and families, as well as on general statistical trends. This year's edition of the report focuses on how to improve early childhood development experiences and opportunities for young children living in low-income neighborhoods, and looks at ways to improve the safety and quality of family-based day care.

Data is available as national and state profiles, 50-state comparisons for specific indicators, and in several graphic formats. User-friendly tools allow users to create customized data tables from state, county, and (in some regions) city- and town-specific data sets. For those who prefer a printed reference, free copies of the report may be ordered from the Kids Count web site.

Kids Count
www.kidscount.org

2006 Kids Count Data Book
Index of Online Content

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New report calms hysteria about boys falling behind

According to a new report from the non-profit group Education Sector, America's boys are routinely characterized as "falling behind" on educational measures even as they improve in absolute terms. As the summary of the report notes, "A dizzying array of so-called experts have seized on the boy crisis as a way to draw attention to their pet educational, cultural, or ideological issues:"

Some say that contemporary classrooms are too structured, suppressing boys' energetic natures and tendency to physical expression; others contend that boys need more structure and discipline in school. Some blame "misguided feminism" for boys' difficulties, while others argue that "myths" of masculinity have a crippling impact on boys. Many of these theories have superficially plausible rationales that make them appealing to some parents, educators, and policymakers. But the evidence suggests that many of these ideas come up short.

Education Sector is an independent education think tank producing original research and policy analysis. The summary and full report are available from the organization's web site.

Education Sector
www.educationsector.org

The Truth About Boys and Girls
Sara Mead, Education Sector, June 2006
Executive Summary
Full report, 21 pages in .pdf

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Harvard study examines impact of partner violence
on health of pregnant women and newborns

In the first national study of the effects of intimate partner violence on the health of pregnant women and newborn children, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) demonstrated that violence from male partners, both in the year prior to and during a woman’s pregnancy, increases her risk of serious health complications during pregnancy. Such abuse also increases a woman’s risk of delivering prematurely and that her child will be born clinically underweight and in need of intensive care. The paper appeared in the July 2006 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Women experiencing abuse in the year prior to and/or during a recent pregnancy were 40 percent to 60 percent more likely than non-abused women to report high-blood pressure, vaginal bleeding, severe nausea, kidney or urinary tract infections and hospitalization during this pregnancy. Abused women were 37 percent more likely to deliver preterm, and children of abused women were 17 percent more likely to be born underweight. Both of these conditions pose grave health risks to newborns, and children born to abused mothers were over 30 percent more likely than other children to require intensive care upon birth.

Press release:
Violence from male partners associated with serious health threats
to pregnant women and newborns
Harvard School of Public Health, 28.jun.06

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Life Without Children:
Marriage proponents lament passing of the "century of the child"

A report from the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University suggests recent trends in marriage and fertility have contributed to the rise of an adult-centric, self-indulgent culture. In their introductory essay, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe argue that raising children "has become a conspicuous source of anxiety and distress" in the United States. But rather than attributing the ratcheting-up of parental angst to the emergence of hyperparenting as the gold standard for middle-class child-rearing or the longstanding disconnect between workplace norms and family needs, the authors surmise that parents are miserable because they feel excluded from the "adult mainstream."

Whitehead and Popenoe -- who are also associated with the Institute American Values, a culturally-conservative think tank -- propose that recent trends toward later marriage, later childbearing, lower fertility, longer lifespans, and better health past middle age have triggered a major transformation of adult roles and expectations. Today, 20 or 25 years of active child-rearing is but a blip on the long trajectory of a mostly unencumbered adulthood, whereas "for most of the nation's history American's expected to devote much of their life and work to the rearing of children." Unlike parents in earlier generations -- who, according to the authors, set about the business of marriage and having babies before they could legally vote and wrapped up the project shortly before descending into their declining years -- the current cohort of young adults can anticipate extended periods of independence before and after the enterprise of making new humans and launching them into the world. Rather than seeing this as a development that bodes well for the fulfillment of human potential, Whitehead and Popenoe propose that the growing significance of pre- and post-parenting life has sucked all the joy out of parenthood. "Today… the expanding non-child-rearing years have become life stages in their own right. Moreover, these years have been invested with positive meaning and purpose. Against the pressures and responsibilities of life with children, the 'child-free' stages hold out the alluring prospect of fun, freedom and fulfillment." Particularly in the media and advertising, the authors lament, "the child-free years are portrayed as more attractive, and even superior to, the child-rearing years… if the twentieth century aspired to become the "century of the child," the twenty-first may become the century of the child-free."

Or maybe not. Clearly, patterns of educational attainment, marriage and fertility have changed dramatically since the 1960s, as have attitudes about the needs of young and school-age children and adolescence as period of special vulnerability. Beliefs about the purpose of marriage and the respectability of non-marital cohabitation and child-bearing have also shifted. As for whether or not Americans feel contemporary society is becoming less child-centered -- it depends on who you ask.

The child-free-by-choice contingent (and young adults who may one day become parents but are presently reveling in their callow youth) will gladly inform you that childless adults are constantly berated for their immaturity and selfish refusal to "spawn," and add that parents receive preferential treatment in the workplace. It's hard to ignore the public's unnatural obsession with celebrity pregnancies -- among the superstar set, sporting a "baby bump" is an instant publicity magnet. Children's toys and infant gear are an important consumer market -- even at the luxury level -- and children's entertainment is big business, with an assortment of cable networks dedicated to children's programming (we've come along way, baby, from Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo). Concerns about childhood obesity are rampant, leading to bans on the sale of sodas and junk food in public schools. More states are passing laws protecting the right to breastfeed in public, and more employers are being sued for discrimination against employees with family responsibilities. From debates about the "opt out revolution" to the never-ending "mommy wars," the travails of middle-class parenting are making news.

On the other hand, the current batch of parenting adults -- who may, in fact, have higher expectations about remaining active in cultural and civic life than previous generations of parents -- complain their options are unnecessarily circumscribed by the family-unfriendliness of contemporary society. While workplace inflexibility and time pressures top their list of grievances, dads and moms also say many events and common spaces are inhospitable or unaccommodating to people with children. Parents remember their childhood neighborhoods as teeming with potential playmates, but today it's rare to see children playing or riding bikes on the street (and developers are banking on adult-only communities as the next big housing market). Adult-organized and supervised play is the new norm, and some fear children's lives have become oppressively structured -- rather being a safe place where children can hang out and have fun, playgrounds, ball fields and school yards are seen as a haven for bullies and sexual predators. School districts have closed and consolidated schools as student populations decline, and pleas to maintain or increase school funding meet with strong resistance from taxpayers. Mothers, both employed and non-employed, report they feel unsupported in the work of mothering and want more empathy from employers, more resources in their communities and more attention from policymakers.

As much as I dislike Whitehead and Popenoe's marriage promotion politics and believe they overstate the indifference of American society to the welfare of middle-class children, they do make an astute observation in their conclusion:

The cultural devaluation of child rearing is especially harmful in the American context. In other advanced western societies, parents' contributions are recognized and compensated with tangible work and family benefits. In American society, the form of compensation has been mainly cultural. Parents have been rewarded (many would argue inadequately) for the unpaid work of caring for children with respect, support and recognition from the larger society. Now this cultural compensation is disappearing.

Of course, the authors go on to suggest, it's All Feminism's Fault for subjecting the "entire child-rearing enterprise" to a "ruthless debunking," with some critics going so far as to suggest "that the tasks of mothering are unworthy of educated women’s time and talents."

But what if the devaluation of child-rearing it isn't feminism's fault? What if "workplace" feminists were just going with the flow? What if the demise of traditional family values and forms is a result of the increasing economic pressures of post-industrial life? What if the devaluation of caring for others is the ideological offspring of the right to liberty and the All-American pursuit of happiness when cross-pollinated with competitive individualism? What if pretending that caregiving is not a primary human activity or an essential social function creates a strategic advantage for individuals and institutions with disproportionate power? What if dominant political forces are pushing us deeper into a hopelessly fractured and apathetic society? If that's the case, I don't think more people getting married and raising kids the old-fashioned way is going to solve our problem. If that's the case, I guess we're really in trouble.

Some interesting facts and figures are buried in Whitehead and Popenoe's essay and the related research summaries, including the finding that the overall risk of divorce is much lower for affluent women with higher education who marry later and have children only after marriage -- precisely the kind of women who spend a decade or so savoring their free, unfettered lives as working women before they settle down. Also of note: in 2004, 56 percent of male and female high school seniors agreed that having a child out of wedlock is a worthy lifestyle and "doesn't affect anyone else," compared to 41 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls in 1980. It seems that despite efforts to turn back the moral tide, change is here to stay.

The State of Our Unions:
The Social Health of Marriage in America 2006
Life Without Children, by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe
with Social Indicators of Marital Health and Wellbeing Trends
of the Past Four Decades
National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, July 2006
Full essay and report, 32 pages in .pdf
Full essay and report, in HTML

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