Stephanie Coontz's article "Why Gender Equality Stalled"(New York Times Sunday Feb. 17, 2013), underscores the lack of family-supportive policies in the U.S.
However, the sad reality is that most employers do not provide adequate work/life supports, leading to a dire situation for families like those described in Coontz's article. Women who would rather work are staying home, and men who would share equally in child care find themselves unable to. Based on our 2011 study of employee well-being nationally, we found that only 18% have access to a full or part-time child care center associated with their employer and only ten percent have access to either back-up child care or adult/ elder care through their employer.
"When the United States' work-family policies are compared with those of other countries at similar levels of economic and political development, the United States comes in dead last."Here in the U.S., employees have to rely on our employers to provide work-family supports to make it possible first, to choose how to best arrange work and family care in our own families, and then to be successful both at work and at home.
However, the sad reality is that most employers do not provide adequate work/life supports, leading to a dire situation for families like those described in Coontz's article. Women who would rather work are staying home, and men who would share equally in child care find themselves unable to. Based on our 2011 study of employee well-being nationally, we found that only 18% have access to a full or part-time child care center associated with their employer and only ten percent have access to either back-up child care or adult/ elder care through their employer.