Families in the U.S. and other industrialized countries are grappling with the twindilemmas of caring for children when all adults are in the workforce, and of achievinggender equality in the home and in the labor market. In U.S. policy debates, proposedsolutions to these dilemmas often force tradeoffs – to promote child well-being at theexpense of gender equality, or to support gender equality at the expense of children’stime with their parents. In this chapter we argue that government can help promotesolutions to work/family conflicts without tradeoffs through policies that support equal caregiving by mothers and fathers and that distribute the costs of childrearing more broadly. Such policies would allow mothers and fathers to care for their children during the critical first year of life while working for pay part-time or intermittently, to combinemore hours in employment with caregiving during later childhood, and to make use ofhigh quality substitute care during their working hours.
Work/Family Reconciliation Policies for the United States: Lessons from Abroad
Families in the U.S. and other industrialized countries are grappling with the twindilemmas of caring for children when all adults are in the workforce, and of achievinggender equality in the home and in the labor market. In U.S. policy debates, proposedsolutions to these dilemmas often force tradeoffs – to promote child well-being at theexpense of gender equality, or to support gender equality at the expense of children’stime with their parents. In this chapter we argue that government can help promotesolutions to work/family conflicts without tradeoffs through policies that support equal caregiving by mothers and fathers and that distribute the costs of childrearing more broadly. Such policies would allow mothers and fathers to care for their children during the critical first year of life while working for pay part-time or intermittently, to combinemore hours in employment with caregiving during later childhood, and to make use ofhigh quality substitute care during their working hours.
