by Tara Habasevich, for the Take Care Net, January 2004
More adults are working:
60% of adult women are in the civilian labor force and, of those women, 95.7% are employed. (1)
43% of children grow up in households where all adults are employed.(1)
Current welfare reform law requires that parents seek and hold a job. (2)
As a result, more employees need paid time off when new children arrive, or when children, partners, parents or employees themselves are seriously ill.
Time for family is a growing need:
In the next five years 49% of women and 46% of men think it will be harder to find time for both work and family responsibilities. (3)
Over 60% of men and women under the age of 59 think that it is likely in the next 10 years they will need to take leave to care for an elderly parent or relative. (3).
Current legislation is insufficient:
Only 55% of all employees are covered and eligible under the Family Medical Leave Act to guaranteed unpaid family leave for certain medical situations. (4)
Over three-quarters of those who needed leave but did not take it said this was because they could not afford it. (5)
Paid Family Leave is not a budget-buster:
Estimated the cost of expanding Unemployment Insurance to cover birth and adoption leave ranges from $11 to $28 per worker per year a dollar or two a month. (6)
The California Employment Development Department estimated that FMLA circumstances could be added to the states Temporary Disability Program for about $22 per worker per year. (6)
Paid Family Leave could save money:
Paid family leave could reduce the amount of taxpayer money that goes to welfare, unemployment compensation, food stamps, and other public programs. (7)
Nine percent of FMLA leave-takers were forced to turn to public assistance to help cover the wages they lost as a result of taking family or medical leave. Of women leave-takers, this percentage was even higher: 12%. (3)
Paid family leave helps employers retain valued employees. Ninety-four percent of leave-takers who were fully paid, (compared with 73.8 percent of those who were partially paid and 76.5 percents of those who were not paid at all) returned to their same employer after taking leave. (8)
Paid family leave keeps employees on the job. Women with access to paid leave were found to work later into pregnancy . . . and to start work sooner once the infant was at least 12 months old (p. 1008). (9)
Americans want Paid Family Leave:
88% of parents of young children and 80% of all adults support paid parental leave. Support is strongest among moms, lower income parents and future parents (p.14). (10)
A large number of women (82%) and men (75%) support disability insurance to provide partial wages when people need to take time from work to care for a newborn or a newly adopted child, to care for a seriously ill parent, child, or spouse; or to recover from their own serious illness. (3)
70% of Republicans, 87% of Democrats, and 79% of Independents support expanding FMLA. (3)
References
1. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2000, Special Population Branch, Population Division.
2. The Personal Responsibility and work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw.h3734_en.htm
3. National Partnership for Women and Families, Family Matters: A National Survey of Women and Men, Washington, D.C. (1998).
4. Commission on Leave. A Workforce Balance: Report to Congress on
Family and Medical Leave Policies, Washington, D.C. (1996), Figure 4.1
5. Westat. Balancing the Needs of Families and Employers: The Family and Medical Leave Surveys, 2000 Update, Report for the U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C. (2000).
6. Vickey Lovell and Hedieh Rahmanou, Paid Family and Medical Leave: Essential Support for Working Women and Men, Institute for Womens Policy Research, Washington, D.C., Publication # A 124 (November, 2000).
7. The Institute for Women and Work, Cornell University, Testimony on Providing Paid Family and Medical Leave in New York State through the Temporary Disability Insurance Program, Ithaca, N.Y. (2001) .
8. Commission of Leave. A Workforce Balance: Report to Congress on Family and Medical Leave Policies, Washington, D.C. (1996), page 114.
9. Jutta M. Joesch, Paid Leave and the Timing of Womens Employment Before and After Birth, Journal of Marriage and the Family 59:1088-1021 (1997)
10. CIVITAS Initiative, ZERO To THREE and BRIO Corporation. Executive Summary: What Grown-Ups Understand About Child Development: A National Benchmark Survey (2000).
