Missionaries of the Sacred

Balancing the Roles of Employee and Parent PDF Print
Saturday, 15 May 2010 00:00
Image for illustration only. Dad and daughter with laptop © Lukasz Fus (iStockPhoto)Traditionally, the husband worked while the wife stayed home and took care of the children. In 1960, this division of labor was true for most U.S. families (60%). However, as women started to enter higher education and the workforce in higher numbers, this traditional model changed, and by 2005, it held true for only about 30% of U.S. families. Today, most married women with children work outside the home, and as the number of families headed by a single parent rises, more parents are struggling to find a way to do it all by themselves. While it is good that now both men and women have the op­portunity to develop their talents through higher education and to pursue careers that match their skills and interests, as a society, we must find ways to help parents achieve balance between work and family life.

Tips:

  • Talk about your attitudes towards work and child rearing. Does your spouse/future spouse want to work full-time? Part-time? Take time off after children are born? If so, how much?
  • Be open to “non-traditional” arrangements that may meet your unique needs, e.g. 20% of married fathers in the U.S. are the primary care-giver for their preschool children.
  • Find out if your company offers flexible work schedules or other arrangements, and if they do, use them. A recent CareerBuilder survey found that nearly 50% of working fathers don’t use flexible work arrangements when these arrangments are offered. In a study of thousands of IBM employees, only 58% of mothers and 34% of fathers reported using such arrangments. We need family friendly policies, but we also need to make it socially expected that families will use these policies.
  • If you or your spouse would like to reduce your hours or stay at home with your kids, ask yourself what standard of living you need to have. Sometimes both parents work in or­der to make ends meet, and sometimes both parents work in order to maintain a certain lifestyle. We always want to give our children the best , but we also need to remember that “more” or “nicer” isn’t always better.

 
 

JPIC Corner May 2010

Share Your Thoughts

How have you balanced work and family life? We’d love to hear from you! Please email us at jpic@misacor-usa.org.

Workers’ Sick Leave and Health Insurance Access in the USA

Thermometer by Petr Kratochvil
Workers who earn the least are least likely to have paid sick days or access to health insurance through their jobs. For private industry workers with income in the lowest quartile, only 38% had access to health insurance and 31% had paid sick time in 2009.

86% of workers in manage­ment/professional jobs have access to health insurance, compared to only 46% of workers in service jobs. Workers in management positions are also twice as likely to have paid sick leave than workers in service jobs (84% vs. 42%).
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