Family and Work Balance: Who’s Responsible Anyway?

by Linda Tarr-Whelan, CPA President and CEO

The political debate in the United States on the balance of family and work is finally shifting with women in business and politics providing new leadership and energy. There is much at stake. More than one-third of American women workers identify this balancing act as the number one work problem. Today, women-led solutions are focused on economics, not "women’s issues." No longer an issue on the margins, solving the family and work balance is in the mainstream. Family-friendly corporations are spotlighted by the White House and appear on the front cover of Business Week, not simply in the columns of Working Mother.

This year Maine State Senator Susan Longley, and her women colleagues who make up 27 percent of the legislature and chair many of the key committees, led the passage of a massive public-private child care program in Maine as a central economic development initiative. Maine is a conservative state and previous efforts to expand child care were often seen as "too liberal." Conservative legislators and the Maine Chamber and Business Alliance joined enthusiastically in this new approach. Sen. Longley set the tone, "Child care is the third largest industry in our state and we haven’t been treating it like a business. It’s hugely important, both for the child and family and for the development of the state."

Under CPA’s sponsorship, a bi-partisan group of thirty-two state legislators from nine Western states met in June 1999 in Seattle, Washington as part of CPA’s Western Policy Leaders Forum. The states they represent have a patchwork quilt of pilots, models and demonstrations–but few systems for family care. Their states mirror the U.S. economy with a large and increasing proportion of workers employed in small business. The women legislative leaders will increase their states’ competitiveness by creating community infrastructure investments for family care. The Western states have the highest percentage of women in the legislatures; women there hold an average of 30 percent of all seats as contrasted with the U.S. Congress, where women are 12 percent of the members.

Women in high level corporate positions also are changing the landscape. The 1998 Families and Work Institute Business Work-Life Study looked at businesses with more than 100 employees. They found that firms where women held one-half or more of the top executive positions (only 20 percent of the firms) family and work policies were vastly improved. For example, 82 percent of such companies provide flex-time compared to 56 percent of companies with no women in top management (30 percent of the firms). There were similar differences for on or near-site child care, dependent-care assistance plans and elder care resource and referral programs.

We must have shared solutions–personal, public and private sector responsibility–to re-balance family and work. As long as this balance is posed as a "women’s issue," we cannot be victorious. Women leaders — from corporate boardrooms, grassroots groups and floors of legislatures–will provide the answers and forge the policies. Women’s political and economic muscle will move the debate. But in the end, it is the family and economic issues that will catch the support of the public and politicians. It is time to invest in a better balance of family and work. Who’s responsible? We all are.

Submitted for publication to the Demos Collection–the Family Business, August, 1999.