Research

This section provides mothering/advocacy research and links to facilitate the research involved for reporters to write articles on issues affecting mothers. For additional information on listed articles and links, please contact the organization resourced. For comment from Mothers & More on any of these issues or articles, please contact a representative listed under “Press Contacts.” Topics covered below include:

General Information Regarding Work/Life Balance
Family Leave Policy Information
Pay Equity
Childcare & Childcare Subsidies
Women’s Research/Policy Organizations

General Information Regarding Work/Life Balance

The Work Life Connection web page has available recent studies on all aspects of work/life balance, including childcare, telecommuting, compressed workweek, etc. The studies are accessible at: http://www.workfamily.com/open/spec_desc.asp

The Families and Work Institute has much research on work/life issues. The research is available to download at: http://www.familiesandwork.org/announce/workforce.html

The Society for Human Resource Management has many publications on what companies are doing to assist employees with work/life balance, as well as statistics on how many companies offer things like telecommuting, flex-time, child care, etc. You can access the group’s Press Room at http://www.shrm.org/press/ (Note: information on the Press Room page is password protected. Working media may obtain a password by calling and/or emailing SHRM at the phone number/address listed on the page.)

The National Women’s Law Center has much information on work/life balance as it pertains to women. The organization has printed many position papers on topics such as child care, child and family support, and social security. You can access this information at: http://www.nwlc.org/

The Center for Policy Alternatives (the nation’s leading nonpartisan progressive public policy and leadership development center serving state legislators, state policy organizations, and state grassroots leaders) has much information relating to work/life issues. The Work/Life section of the CPA web page can be accessed at http://www.stateaction.org/issues/workfamily/ or you can go straight to the press room http://www.stateaction.org/cpa/pressroom/index.cfm for media contact information.

The AFL/CIO conducted a survey of working women in 2000, asking which political issues matter most to them. The top four legislative issues were:equal pay; affordable healthcare; paid leave; and pensions/social security. These responses, along with other information about the wants/needs of working women, are broken down by income, ethnicity, and age at: http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/women/

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has an extensive list of publications on its National Survey of Families and Households webpage. Some examples include: “The Effects of Wives’ Employment on Marital Quality” and “Family Caregiving: Contemporary Trends and Issues”. Access this list at: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/nsfhwp/home.htm

The project on Global Working Families at Harvard University has both domestic and international research on the effects of working on children and homelife. Prof. Jody Heyman (who has written extensively on work/life balance) runs the site and can be contacted for comment. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/globalworkingfamilies/

Families that Work: The Program on Gender, Work & Family is a research and advocacy center based at the American University, Washington College of Law that educates about the consequences of employment practices that unfairly penalize individuals with family caregiving responsibilities. Joan Williams, Executive Director, wrote Unbending Gender: Why Work and Family Conflict and What To Do About It.
http://www.wcl.american.edu/gender/workfamily/

The Economic Policy Institute has a number of recent reports related to the economics of work/family. http://www.epinet.org

Family Leave Policy Information

Janet C. Gornick, Associate Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York, has published a comparison of family leave policies (U.S. vs. Western European countries). The data is available online at: http://www.lisproject.org/publications/fampol/fampolaccess.htm

The Center for Policy Alternatives (the nation’s leading nonpartisan progressive public policy and leadership development center serving state legislators, state policy organizations, and state grassroots leaders) has much information about the Family Medial Leave Act, including statistics on who uses it and why. You can access this information at: http://www.stateaction.org/issues/workfamily/famleave/index.cfm

The U.S. Department of Labor keeps many statistics on the Family Medical Leave Act. The Department released a publication detailing these stats, which is called “Balancing the Needs of Families and Employers: The Family and Medical Leave Surveys 2000 Update”. http://www.dol.gov/asp/fmla/main.htm

The Columbia University Clearinghouse on International Developments in Child, Youth and Family Policies has very comprehensive and up-to-date data on family leave policies, levels of compensation during leave, early childhood education programs and statistics about working families for key OECD countries. The site also has information on other social indicators and the history of social policy in the countries it tracks. http://www.childpolicyintl.org

A compact resource is Jane Waldfogel’s chapter on comparative leave policies in the U.S. and peer nations published in the Spring/Summer 2001 “Future of Children Report” (Caring for Infants and Toddlers). The Future of Children Web site also offers a press summary of this section. There are other topics relevant to work/family and caregiving issues in this publication as well.

The National Bureau of Economic Research web page has an interesting article by Dr. Christopher J. Ruhm (University of North Carolina at Greensborough) that states “ More generous leave rights are found to reduce deaths of infants and young children… The evidence further suggests that parental leave may be a cost-effective method of bettering child health.” The article can be downloaded in PDF or emailed to you by going to: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W6554

The United States Office of Personnel Management has its “Report to Congress on Paid Parental Leave” available online at http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/HTML/ParentalReport.htm This report covers ONLY federal employees; however, it is interesting in that it compares the family leave policies of non-federal employers using data obtained from various reliable sources.

NOTE: The specifics on family leave programs, by country, are too numerous to include here. However, a complete list can be obtained by inputting “Parental Leave” in your favorite search engine.

Pay Equity

The National Committee on Pay Equity has just about everything you need to know about pay equity for women: http://www.feminist.com/fairpay/

Dr. Hilary Lips, the Director of the Center for Gender Studies and Women's Studies at Radford University in Virginia, maintains an on-going examination of wage-gap data. Research studies and contact information are located at: http://www.radford.edu/~gstudies/sources/wage_gaps/wagegap.htm

Childcare & Childcare Subsidies

“Children’s Advocate”, published by the Action Alliance for Children, has an article comparing U.S. childcare policies with those of other countries. This article can be found at: http://www.4children.org/news/5-97intl.htm

The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a special report on European childcare (and family subsidies for children). The article is from 1996, but the information is still pertinent. It can be found at: http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos232/eurowelfare/welf14.htm

The Urban Institute details issues in numerous reports: http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?NavMenuID=24

The Childcare Action Compaign contains information about the necessity for quality, affordable childcare. http://www.childcareaction.org/

The National Women’s Law Center has some excellent information on both federal and state child care policies. All of this information is available to download in PDF files. You can access this at http://www.nwlc.org/display.cfm?section=childcare

Jane Waldfogel’s chapter on comparative leave policies in the U.S. and peer nations published in the Spring/Summer 2001 “Future of Children Report” (Caring for Infants and Toddlers). The Future of Children Web site also offers a press summary of this section. There are other topics relevant to work/family and caregiving issues in this publication as well.

Women’s Research/Policy Organizations

National Council for Research on Women is a clearinghouse of women's policy research. Not much information on work/life issues, but the NCRW would know where to get information if they didn't have it in-house. http://www.ncrw.org/

The Center for Women's Policy is a feminist organization that catalogues research/statistics on government policies as they pertain to women. The organization doesn't have many publications to its name, but is available for comment on women's issues. Contact information is available on the homepage. http://www.centerwomenpolicy.org/

The Institute for Women's Policy Research has many publications on women's economic status. Of particular note are the following publications (available in PDF on the web site): "Paid Family and Medical Leave: Essential Support for Working Women and Men" and "The Widening Gap: A New Book on the Struggle to Balance Work and Caregiving" (both attached). All can be found at http://www.iwpr.org/

The United Nations' "Womenwatch" contains information, research, and statistical data regarding global women's issues (including employment, population, poverty, etc.) You can reach the site by going to: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/

The United Nations' Beijing Platform (on the global status of women) is available online at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/ Specifically, research on women and economy is available at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/session/presskit/fs6.htm (The latter is pertinent when comparing the status of women in the United States vs. other industrialized nations.)