Looking for Balance in All the Wrong Places

Welcome to the Tuesday guest blog. Every Tuesday "On Balance" features the views of a guest writer. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your most loved or hated poster from the blog, or you! Send me your original, unpublished entry (300 words or fewer) for consideration. Obviously, the topic should be something related to balancing your life.

By Robert Drago

Young women seeking success in both career and family life are often advised to find men who cook and employers with family-friendly policies. Where has this advice taken us?

As I find in Striking a Balance, the advice helped some: Parents in dual-earner couples now split child care almost equally. But the strategy was generally a failure. According to the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, fewer than two million mothers held career jobs working at least 45 hours per week while 12 million held jobs paying less than the value of the minimum wage from 1968 ($8.30 per hour in current dollars).

And if the strategy was supposed to generate adequate care for children and adults in need, it again failed. Most Americans living in poverty today are children and adults with disabilities. Indeed, around 50 million children and adults with disabilities are receiving substandard, dangerous, or no care.

Nor can we ask corporations, by themselves, to solve these problems. Employers cannot compete in a global economy while footing the bill for big-ticket family items such as child and elder care, paid family leave, or health insurance.

Fortunately, a consensus is emerging around better ways to promote balance. Employers are moving to create more flexible, inclusive workplaces where the diverse needs of employees -- including parents -- are met. These initiatives enhance both business and family effectiveness. But the federal government needs to step up to the plate and foot the bill for paid family leave, child and elder care, and health insurance. This approach underpins the Work and Family Bill of Rights and may frame much of the 2008 political debates.

So our advice to young women should be to look for employers who listen and respond to employee needs while making family support a ballot-box issue.

Robert Drago is a Professor of Labor Studies and Women's Studies at Penn State University, a co-founder of the Take Care Net, and the moderator of the workfam newsgroup. His latest book is Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life.

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  March 6, 2007; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Guest Blogs
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