Laws Must Catch Up With Family Life

Congress and corporations are finally showing signs that they are aware of the impact on family life of the dramatically changing role of women in the workplace.

After years of inaction, Congress is on the verge of adopting a compromise bill to set up a multibillion-dollar child-care program. Much more is needed, but it will be a good beginning.

Soon after that legislation passes and is signed by President Bush, who supports it, Congress is expected to adopt a bill to make sure workers have the right to get maternity and paternity leave from their jobs.

The proposal requires employers to provide only unpaid leave when a child is born, which is unfortunate because that’s when a couple needs not only the time off but a larger income. Again, though, it’s a start.

Also, there is clear evidence that employers are focusing more than ever on providing fringe benefits to help the growing number of “non-traditional” families.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that its new survey of 100,000 companies indicates a trend toward an increase in family benefits, ranging from flexible work schedules to help for workers paying dependent-care costs.

As more and more women have entered the work force, there has been a dramatic decline in traditional families, those in which the father has an outside job and the mother takes care of the kids and house.

In just 15 years, the percentage of such families has been cut in half, to 23% of all households.

Also, as recently as 20 years ago, about a third of all women had jobs outside of their homes. Today, 46% of them do, and that trend, too, is continuing.

Nevertheless, while Congress and employers talked a lot, little was done by either of them to deal with the impact of the nation’s new demography.

That continuing demographic change was part of the much-needed women’s liberation movement. It was also spurred by the decline in real wages of men, which has forced many women to find paying jobs just to maintain the family’s standard of living.

The change created problems for many families who never faced them before: Who takes care of the kids when mother and father are both away at work? What to do about duplicative health insurance when both husband and wife have insurance that can help protect the other? And so on.

Flexible work schedules can help. For the first time, the BLS survey included a question on flexible schedules and found that 11% of employers now offer workers the right to begin and end work within a range of hours to help them meet family commitments.

A BLS spokesman said past spot checks show that the number of those on flexible schedules has gone up significantly in the past few years, and the trend is continuing.

Also useful to the modern family are flexible benefits, and they, too, are rising rapidly. The survey showed 9% of workers are now given a choice, for example, of whether to take longer vacations or increase some other benefit instead of taking health insurance that is already provided by a spouse.

While that percentage is low, it’s still far higher than the 2% who had flexible benefits just two years ago, and a Wyatt Co. survey found that half of the companies it checked plan to offer a choice of benefits within the next five years.

Another assist: “reimbursement accounts” from which employees can draw money, tax-free, to pay for such things as care for children and for elderly family members.

Four years ago, only 5% of workers surveyed by BLS were offered reimbursement accounts. Now 23% can use them, and their ranks are swelling rapidly.

While workers have to finance the accounts, the significant tax advantages make them worthwhile. Obviously, the plan would be much better if employers kicked in some contribution, too.

The urgent need for government action to assure workers of maternity and paternity leave was made obvious by the latest government figures: Only 37% of women workers are given even unpaid maternity leave by their employers, and only 18% of male workers can get paternity leave.

Don’t give credit where it isn’t due. Altruism wasn’t a big motivating factor in spurring Congress or employers to action.

Congress is finally acting because such benefits are increasingly popular politically, a point being hammered home in intensive lobbying by unions, women’s groups and others.

And companies, too, are usually acting out of self-interest. Many do it under union pressure, and many more know they have to offer such benefits to attract and hold workers, especially women, who already make up nearly half of the work force.

As observed by Dallas Salisbury, of the Employment Benefit Research Institute, it costs big money for companies to train newly hired young women, only to lose them when the women find later that they cannot balance the requirements of their jobs with family needs.

Karen Ignagni, head of the AFL-CIO employee benefits department, says such benefits also increase productivity of workers, since they can do their jobs better if they aren’t worrying about neglecting their families at home.

Studies show that increased productivity more than offsets the added costs of the benefits, she said.

It is good to see that at last Congress and increasing numbers of employers are at least taking some steps to deal with problems stemming from the increasing number of women who work outside their homes.