Current Trends & Suggested Global Strategies to Support the Feminization of the Workforce +The Double Burden of Working Women

Author Bios:

DIANA PETERSON (corresponding author) is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Texas, Permian Basin with over 20 years of experience in higher education teaching in the areas of research methods; comparative criminal justice systems; race, gender, class and crime and statistics. Diana has been the chairperson of three different criminal justice programs over the past 15 years and has published in the areas of criminal justice, social work, higher education, sociology, business and management. Her research interests include issues in policing (training & education) and community policing, assessment and leadership in higher education, family violence, evaluation research and program development.   Currently, Diana is seeking two concurrent masters degrees at Arizona State University:  Social Justice & Human Rights and Public Affairs (Emergency Management).

DONGLING ZHANG is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Anthropology & Sociology, Webster University, the United States of America. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Justice Studies from Arizona State University. His research focuses on the power dynamics of entrepreneurship, exploring various forms of collective and interpersonal violence instigated by the overwhelming influences of entrepreneurial ethos. His current research focuses on the power dynamics of entrepreneurship, exploring various forms of collective and interpersonal violence instigated by the overwhelming influences of entrepreneurial ethos. He primarily studies the institutions through which a social body—entrepreneur is continually structured and transformed. These institutions include family, neighborhood, labor market, government agency, etc.

Abstract

This analysis provides an historical overview of women in the workforce in the U.S., while shining light on issues/problems that are seemingly present for many women, their families, as well as for the organizations that employ them. Current controversies and challenges are addressed with an overview of trends facing both employers and women. A comparative analysis provides similarities and differences among the U.S. and other countries across the globe. Best practices will be explored with competencies needed for effectively managing challenging issues associated with the feminization of the workforce. Recommendations address issues that may affect both women and employers in the 21^st century.

Current Trends and Suggested Global Strategies to Support the Feminization of Workforce

I put all this time and effort into getting an accounting and master’s degree.  You want to be the best you can be, and now you’ve got children, and how can you be the best mom and the best employee at the same time

–Crowe, 2014. p. 2

            Does my employer really care that daycare for my children costs more per month than my mortgage?  I so wish there would be an affordable daycare center on site at my job                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  –Olga, mother of 2

As employers become more aware of the multiple work-life balance issues affecting their employees’ lives, they are increasingly attempting to help employees address their poor physical and/or mental conditions.

  –Harte, et al., 2011, p. 21

I so long to be with my young children while I am at work. I would rather pull my hair out than leave them in daycare, as they always cry on Mondays when they go back to school.  It seems I always must make choices, such as pay for day care or put tires on my car or pay my rent.  I feel guilty when I work about being away from my kids and feel guilty at home for not getting my work done, so that we can have a little family time.  It is always a struggle, especially when one of them is sick.  It’s not as if there is a daycare center around me who is willing to take sick children.  I always fear calling my boss when one of my kids is sick. It is as if I am always on thin ice.  If one thing goes wrong, we (my kids and I) will fall right through the cracks.

–Linda, single working mother of three, all under age eight

         Introduction

It can be easily argued that women have made great strides in the world of employment in industrialized countries. Pay gaps are narrowing; more women are going to college than men, as women continue to chip away at the glass ceiling. With the increasing feminization of the workforce, even in the 21^st century around the globe, working women continue to struggle, especially if children are involved.

We are in an era of vast change, as more Americans are working longer hours and many mothers are working full-time or juggling multiple jobs just to keep their heads above water (Arellano, 2016). Noteworthy, in 2014, 24% of women were out-earning their husbands (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). With such changes, administrators whether in public, private, or non-profit organizations must be well versed and prepared for challenges or crises which will or may occur in the work environment, especially when an employee’s home lives affect his or her working environments. In the U.S., laws and policies providing for an employee’s need to attend to family are woefully inadequate (Arellano, 2015). Although there is no lack of information regarding challenges working women continue to struggle with, administrators may have to look beyond the boarders while searching for best practices and solutions to global issues. Currently, not enough is known on a global scale regarding best practices in support of the feminization of the workforce. What are the best proactive practices for managing conflicts which may arise as females continue to attempt to pierce the glass ceiling? How does the U.S. compare to the rest of the world in dealing with family issues, such as pregnancies, child care, employees with sick children or family members? How does the U.S. compare to other countries in terms of successfully managing the feminization of the workforce?

Berman, Bowman, and Van Wart (2016) identify an important paradox in organizations, as employers expect quality work and service from employees; employees also expect in return for their efforts, that the organization will care for their over-arching needs, such as if they have children, or a drug problem, or a sick parent with dementia. This study will provide a glimpse into employer work and family relationships, in both past and present times. Statistical overviews will provide a picture of the gendered work force, as well as challenges faced by both working women and employers. After reviewing common approaches and terms relevant for employers in managing challenges facing them regarding the feminization of the workforce, three issues/strategies will be explored in detail: the rights of employees and employers under the regulation of the Federal Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) and the FMLA’s shortcomings; child care dilemmas and remedies for working parents; and leveling the playing field with higher pay for women in the workforce, thereby equalizing salaries of men and women.

Background of Study

Over the past seven decades, the composition of the workforce has vastly changed

(Bureau of Labor Statistics-BLS, 2015) with women increasingly participating in the workforce (57% in 2014 up from nearly 30% after World War II, and 54% in 1981) (Grossman, 1981). Women are now attaining higher levels of education than their male counterparts (in 1970,11% of women earned a four-year degree vs 40% in 2014), and are ‘bringing home the bacon’ at levels never witnessed in our times. Although a gender pay gap continues, with women earning currently 83% ($719.00 per week), as opposed to 62% in 1979, of what men earn ($871.00 per week) with variations in occupations (BLS, 2016).

The watershed year for females in the workforce was in 1999 at 60%, decreasing to 57% by 2014, which per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015), is generally quite high. However, Grossman (1982) summarized that 54% of mothers with children under the age of 18 (in the early 1990’s) were either employed or looking for work. This translated into “a record 8.2 million children below the age of six—or 45% of all preschoolers had working mothers, which was a 2% increase from the previous year” (p. 41). Certainly, women have come a long way; however, being a mother and employed continues to be problematic for families on a global scale. In the U.S., as of 2014, 76% of unwed mothers with children (under age 18) were participating in the workforce. In comparison 68% of their married counterparts with children were employed. Among all employed women with children, over 60% worked full time; 5.3% of those women held more than one job/occupation. In addition, nearly 17% of 2.6 million employed women were disabled in 2014 (BLS, 2016).

The FMLA was passed in 1993, signed by President Bill Clinton, which provides up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave each year for employees for life circumstances such as child birth or adoption of child; health conditions of employee or to care for a family member (Brainerd, 2005) with the knowledge that they will be able to return to their former position, after the leave has commenced. Per a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), less than 15% of employees in the U.S. are allowed leave under the FMLA with pay.

The stronghold of the Act is that this forces employers to not discriminate against employees requesting or taking the FMLA benefits (Brainard, 2005). Stringent rules apply however, the leave can only be approved if the employee has been working at the organization for one year; the employer must have at least 50 employees for each day of work. The FMLA was created “to balance the demands of the workplace and family and to promote stability” (Brainard, 2005, p. 1603). Only four states in America offer a form of paid parental leave for employees which are California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Rhode Island (Henry, Dove, Edwards & Hinote, 2016). Therefore,

American families and workplaces are not only diverse by race, gender, or overall makeup but are also varied in the way they treat and plan for the care of a child, or a sick family member” (Arellano, 2015, p.1).

Although employers in the U.S. offer opportunities to their employees, as many are offering innovations such as job sharing; part-time work; telecommunicating; flex options; leave pooling; voluntary reduced time; temporary work; adoption coverage; domestic partner coverage on a reactive level, but other solutions many include services at the proactive level, such as offering health, safety, and wellness programs. All such services signal to the employee that they are cared for by the organization (Berman, Bowman, & Van Wart, 2016). Adringa, Nieuwenhuis, and Gerven (2015) reported interesting findings,

Policy makers should take note that women’s employment decisions are not dependent on human capital and household-consumption factors alone.  How many hours a week women work was associated with individual’s gender role, attitudes, country-level gender role attitudes and child care expenditure (p. 596).

Although Congress twice attempted to pass additional legislation to expand the language of the FMLA to include paid leave, such efforts failed. The FMLA was expanded upon in 2008 to include to additional 14 weeks (or 26 weeks total) for employees who have family members seriously injured or who became sick in the line of duty (p. 165).

Double Burden of Working Women

A working woman’s decision to become a mother touches upon many factors, some of which are private, including her personal characteristics, her partner’s expectations, what her family and friends think, and financial conditions, others which are in the public sphere, such as socio-economic and legal structures that allow her to juggle a double-responsibility as both a mother in her own family and a worker in the public workplace (Helms & Guffey, 1997). In other words, maintaining a career while raising kids has the effect of magnifying women’s burden as not only bread earners for the family but also supporters of the state’s economic growth (Poster & Salime, 2002). For this reason, this research on the feminization of the workforce cannot be isolated from a comprehensive investigation into socio-economic and legal dynamics in the U.S. Actually, this awareness further reinforces the rationale for this research project: by examining how the regulation of the FMLA has influenced the rights of female employees and their employers, this study serves a significant addition to the research on women’s employment.

Women’s work-related rights are an importance topic in governments around the world. To protect women’s employment and maternity rights is essential to establishing and maintaining a modern state with sustainable economic growth (Borovoy & Ghodsee, 2012). However, “working norms and workplaces, where more and more women now work, are still designed for a previous critical sites of gender production and reproduction” (Baird, Williamson, & Heron, 2012, p. 328). This is in accordance with previous research indicating that motherhood could probably give birth to a form of gender inequality targeting at working mothers in terms of hiring, wages, promotion, and work experience (Glauber, 2012). To make matters worse, the discourse of the male breadwinner ideal, once appearing to lose its dominance in the mainstream culture of both the U.S. and European Union (EU) nations since the 1950s, is in fact not weakened (Lewis, 1992; 1993; Cherlin, 2009). Instead, it has been reinforced and sustained in a particular socio-economic and political context where a woman’s contribution to a family both inside and outside the home is secondary to that of her partner or husband (Dillaway & Pare, 2008). This primary outcome of such bias is the perpetuation of the male breadwinner and female homemaker family model, which marginalizes women’s both private and public roles/contributions.

In such situation, this research focuses on options for public policies and laws that not only protect women’s equal rights in the workplace but also promote alternative socio-economic and political arrangements appropriate for a more balanced division of women’s responsibilities inside and outside the family. Many empirical research shows that sources of child care support such as funded child care, leave provisions, and flexible working schedules have been found to have a positive effect on mothers’ participation in the labor force (del Boca, 2002; Haan & Wrohlich, 2011; Fitzpatrick, 2012; Alonso-Almeida, 2014). Child care provision has also been proven to be more effective than many other economic incentives in starting and pushing forward women’s employment (Lefebvre & Merrigan, 2008). As a result, this research project would sheds light on how the implementation of the FMLA has shaped working mothers’ double burden, and more significantly, what improvement should be made to put an end to the exploitation and oppression of those women.

Current Controversies/Challenges for Working Women and Employers

The U.S. in the only developed country in the world who fails to offer paid leave for parents. Nearly all states will provide unpaid leave for up to 12 weeks, but over 50% of families cannot afford to take it, or they are deemed ineligible for the benefit (Ajinka, 2013). More troublesome is that 30% of employed pregnant mothers in the U.S. report taking no maternity leave (Skiba, 2016).

A Tale of Three Working Women: Qualitative Examples of Challenges (Understanding the Struggle)

Detailed descriptions of women’s lives and their stories of struggle, shine light on how three women have struggled with issues of child care. Unfortunately, many others around the world share similar stories.

As an upper-level manager in the public sector, I had been in my position for six months when I learned of my unexpected pregnancy.  I had only accrued one week of sick time and could not qualify for the FMLA.  I couldn’t afford to go without a salary, and had no choice but to go back to work three weeks after a complicated pregnancy and a cesarean section.  I luckily had three vacation days, but still ended up being poor on two fronts—I horribly missed my baby and my pay was docked for the few extra days off to recover from my C-section.  All the sudden, my world seemed bleak and harsh.  My friend from Sweden had been home with her new baby for over one year.  She could take eighteen months from work!  Can’t America get it, right?  I feel as if I missed a boat, and both my baby and I suffered.  What was even worse was sticker price of daycare!  My baby was premature and could not go to daycare until she was 3 months old.  My husband had lost his job and could watch her while I was working and pumping breastmilk at work.  The full- time cost of daycare for my tiny daughter was $1050.00 per month, which was only $100.00 less than my mortgage.  I was very discouraged and felt cheated, as I only got to spend three weeks with my baby.  One of those weeks was in the NICU.  Can you imagine how scared I was to tell my immediate supervisor that I was pregnant?  It went downhill from there.

–Debra (38-year old mother of a new baby)

The costs of daycare have about shut me out of working.   I have a master’s degree and earn over $65,000 per year, but paying $950.00 per month to put my two children in day care makes me want to give up.  I wish my employer would offer daycare services for our large organization.  There is a nearby university with an early childhood education program, as well as a K-12 program.  Why can’t the university and my employer form a partnership and offer daycare with their students and staff overseeing a daycare center on campus.  Writing that check for almost $1000.oo per month almost kills me.  I cringe every month while writing the check.  Can’t this be any easier?  I will qualify for child care credits on my tax returns, but this is very minimal.

–Angelique (32-year old mother of two)

After my bitter divorce ended a very abusive marriage, I was awarded full custody of my three children.  My ex-husband somehow got away with not paying child support and I was on my own, with a bachelor’s degree and no job or any savings.  I was awarded only my children in the divorce; my husband was awarded the house.  I had to apply for food stamps and it was so cold in the winter that we had to wear shoes to bed, as I couldn’t afford to turn my heater up very high.  So, it was a time of very high unemployment and I decided to go to graduate school.  Luckily in graduate school, there was a new support group for single mothers, where students helped each other with child care.  That worked well for my first year and to my surprise, my university opened a day care for students, where the early childhood development students completed their internships.  There was no cost for students!  Well, it was included in my tuition I believe, but it was one of the best things that happened in my life.  However, I think that was a rare event.  Without those two occurrences (a support group and day care offered by my university), I never could have made it.  If only my employer now would offer daycare to all employees at a reasonable rate.  If feel as if I am back in graduate school before learning of support groups for mothers in college.  I am going through the fight all over again.  My supervisor is not sympathetic if my child has the chicken pox or a stomach bug. The essential point is that I must work to survive and I am having the same child care issues as long ago.

–Sam (35-year-old mother of 3)

Relevant Public vs. Private Sector

Family issues and child care dilemmas are similar around the world. Within the FMLA, there are several distinctions between public and private organizations.

The ADA defines ‘employer’ as a person, engaged in industry affecting commerce, who has 15 or more employees for each day in the weeks of the calendar, with at least a total of 50 employees. Many courts have held that individual liability for supervisory employees is not appropriate under the ADA. In employment discrimination cases under the ADA brought against public employees in their individual capacities, more courts concluded no individual liability exists (Bainard, 2006, p. 1592). In the private sector, the discussion over individual liability is more muted, with most courts holding that individual liability for supervisors and similarly situated employees is proper (p. 1607).

In the last few years, it has been primarily large employers who have been more willing to offer more than eight weeks of leave for new parents. Lorenzetti (2015) recalls that both Microsoft and Netflix, only in the last few years, agreed to offer benefits of parental leave (longer than eight weeks).

Global Comparative Analysis:  U.S. vs. Other Countries

Gender discourses of work can determine the fate of women workers in the Third World where, historically men and women are commonly accepted to be different types of labor (Munson, 2013, p. 90).

The U.S. devalues unpaid care work.  This failure to recognize the value in care in turn fosters gender inequality (Drago, 2011, p. 612).

Global trends are showing that many working mothers believe child care costs are both unaffordable and excessive (McCormick, 2016; Crowe, 2016).  This is not just a national issue, but a global one. However, when the U.S. is compared to other countries, Arellano (2015) reveals the U.S. is lacking and insufficient in terms of promoting a work-life balance for employees. Increasing numbers of women are choosing to stay at home with their children rather than work outside the home (Crowe, 2014) which is a new trend after thirty years and is associated with the high cost of child care. Other countries, such as in Ireland, over 50% of lower income parents cannot afford to be employed because of the high costs of child care (Sheehan, 2016; Duncan, 2016). Both Ireland and England (Squires, 2016) show similar trends, as it has recently been reported that the average parents in Great Britain with one child spends nearly 40% of their monthly incomes on child care. However, in both Great Britain and Australia, employees are allowed up to one year away from work (Sherman, 2015).

Just recently (fall 2016), in Ireland good news was granted to working families.  It was apparent the working family’s government finally acted upon parents’ desperate pleas for help, as

the Government has announced that it is introducing a new scheme where all parents (regardless of their annual income) with children aged between six months and three years in child care will be entitled to up to (EURO)900 in State subsidies a year (Moriarty, 2015, p. 31).

The U.S. mandates only 12 hours of unpaid leave, which when compared with other countries, is very low. compared on a global scale.  Therefore, America’s policies are not in line with other countries. (Sherman, 2015).

The International Labor Organization stress that women “should be allowed to be on leave for 14 weeks, while being reimbursed up to two-thirds of their earnings.  The benefits are encouraged to be funded by the state through public funds or Social Security” (p.1B).

Moilanen, May, Raikkonen, Sevon and Laasko (2015), regard Finland as the model or benchmark, as the country has “the most comprehensive, near-universal provision of formal child care which enables mothers to return to work, making it the Parent/Worker Model (p. 37), offering 24-hour child care every day of the week, which are very family friendly.

Examples of Best Practices in High Performing Organizations

Employers must get more aggressive in their health and productivity strategies. A comprehensive strategy includes data analytics across health and lost-time programs, absence policies that meet today’s needs for both employer and employee, health and wellness programs targeting modifiable health behaviors, and absence program administration that is aligned to operational goals

                                                                                          (Harte et al., 2014, p. 14—Great Britain)

Berman et al., (2016) offered many resolutions to issues regarding employers being more family-friendly, including, but not limited to domestic partner coverage, workers with ill family member, and mental health issues of the employee or immediate family members. Being proactive, employers can demonstrate that it cares about the employee by providing health, safety, and wellness programs, which in turn will demonstrate to employees that they are assets and are worth the investments of such programs.

Suggested Competencies Needed for Effective Management

Although many employers are concerned about workforce health, their efforts to address this problem have tended to focus on medical costs without considering how health impacts workforce productivity. Historically, many employers have had little information about how disability, absenteeism and lost productivity affect their essential point. After identifying major medical and pharmacy cost drivers, many employers have attempted to relieve their cost burden by implementing siloed approaches to health and productivity management versus thinking more holistically.  Forward-thinking employers implement comprehensive strategies that cross the organization’s various programs, policies, and populations.

                                                      —Harte, Mahieu., Mallet., Norville and VanderWerf, 2011, p. 23.

1. All employers should review and carefully analyze the FMLA policies so that compliance is not an issue, as well as employee rights and responsibilities (Milkman and Appelbaum, 2013).

2. All administrators should be well versed in the needs of their employees’ child care and must understand the ‘child care squeeze’, where parents find themselves spending a large portion of their income on child care or find themselves squeezed out of the job market because the they cannot find jobs to offset the costs of child care. Furthermore, the squeeze continues to persist if parents decide to take time off to raise children, gaps in his/her resume may preclude a parent from returning to a competitive job market (McCormack, 2016).

3. Understand positive and research driven methods that have been shown to be successful for providing a caring environment for employees (or employee friends), such as EAP’s; stress-reduction programs, and wellness programs.  The greater awareness administrators have through education or trainings, such as understanding the value of wellness programs, as they improve both productivity and morale (Berman et al, 2016).

4. Public sector supervisors and private sector supervisors should be held to the same standards (Brianerd, 2005) regarding leave policies.

5. Supervisors should be forward-thinkers preparing both the organization and the employee for leave.  Employees and employers should have detailed plans and schedules for what to expect while the employee is on leave (Supervisory Management, 1994).

6. Harte, Mahieu, Mallett, Norville, and VanderWerf, (2011) discuss organizations might offer comprehensive health and productivity strategies, which

encompasses several key tactical aspects that, when successfully linked, support an employer’s ability to influence workforce productivity. Included in the strategies are data analytics across health and lost time programs, absence policies that meet today’s needs for both employer and employee, health and wellness programs targeting modifiable health behaviors, and absence program administration that is aligned to operational goals (p. 24).

7. With retaliation charges on the rise in cases when employees utilize the FMLA, administrators must be well-versed in policy and practices of the FMLA, while adopting practices to prevent litigation (Findley, Dove, Edwards, & Hinote, 2016).

8. To effectively manage today’s organizations, administrators can take fruitful research findings that wellness programs improve morale and productivity and preventatively offer employees solutions (Berman et al, 2016), including trends regarding the importance of breastfeeding and maternal-infant bonding (Skiba, 2016).

9. In demonstrating a caring attitude for employees, managers should also be well-versed in research in employment and child care, as findings are showing that mixed child care (sending child to babysitter in home setting on several days of week and regular daycare centers on others). This causes mothers to “increase her hours of education or improves her chance at completing education and entering employment” (Brady, 2016, p. 835), as having the informal network may afford mothers with a safety-net if a crisis, such as illness, occurs.

10. Administrators must stay abreast of trends regarding employees who may become pregnant, as many mothers who forgo working would agree to work if reduced hours were available to them (Stone, 2007).

11. Employers should promote the FMLA for workers, as the literature is showing that having a young child is associated with negative effects on the mother’s employment (Waldfogel, Higuchi, & Abe, 1999).

Conclusion and Recommendations

Tax laws are stacked against working parents.

–(McCormack, 2016, p. 653; Richards, 1973)

It is vital for administrators to understand and are properly versed in not only laws and policy, but in modern trends in the workforce and among families.  For example, a current trend in the U.S., is that women are waiting longer to have children, as for the first time in U.S. history, more women are having babies at or over age 35 years of age, than under 25 years of age (Gani, 2015).  Older mothers tend to have more problematic pregnancies and higher risks, which impacts their work if they are employed.  Therefore, would only 12 weeks of unpaid leave be appropriate for older mothers?  All families should have easy access to both affordable and safe daycare.  As women are now earning incomes at 83% of men (BLS, 2016), higher pay for women must be realized. Great strides have been made over the past few decades; however, the playing field must be equalized whereby men and women are treated equally in terms of income.  McCormack (2016) recommends further that “parents should receive a tax relief for a far more significant portion of working child care expense than current laws provide” (p. 577), as current tax policies may further squeeze parents out of the job market altogether.

Regarding the FMLA in the U.S., only a handful of states offer paid leave for their employees, if the organization has at least 50 employees.  Although Congress has attempted twice for the enactment of paid leave, the efforts failed since the passage of the FMLA (Brainard, 2005).  However, if leave were paid as in other Countries, such as Finland or Sweden, this would be a vast improvement for working families, as taking leave without pay can lead one to financial distress.   Malone (2011) suggested that financial incentives might be utilized so that the FMLA a had better meet the needs of workers and found accordingly that, providing worker-funded paid leave will increase the feasibility of taking leave for single parents and for dual- earner households that will be more equipped to survive financially.  Finally, a program of positive incentives for employers, employees, or both to take full advantage of family leave policies on a gender-equal basis will help reduce workers’ concern about the stigmatic effects of family leave (p. 1237).

Finally, a report written and prepared for the Executive Office of the U.S. President (2014), revealed one last recommendation,

When workers are choosing which companies to work for based on their family-friendly policies, the companies that adopt such policies are better able to attract and retain talent.  When more companies have adopted such policies, we can make it easier for parents to participate in the labor force (p. 3).

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