Family Leave Policies

A new study by the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University reports that working women who have paid family leave are much more likely to be working after the birth of a child and, most often, experience an increase in wage from pre- to post-birth.

The study analyzed information from the US Department of Labor between 1997 and 2009.  Among the findings, the study noted that since the mid-1980s, there has been a 13% increase (now nearly 73%) in the percentage of children with both parents (or the only parent) working outside the home.  And despite a tremendous amount of rhetoric about “family values,” “support for working families,” and “keeping our children secure,” the United States lags far behind other industrialized nations when it comes to policies that support workers needing time off for family time and needs.

Except for only a few states, practice in this country is limited to unpaid leave, despite 1993’s passage of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which requires that companies with a least 50 workers provide up to 12 weeks of leave (unpaid and not job-protected) annually “for their own health or the health of a family members.”  This leaves most employees to patch together sick time, vacation time, disability insurance, or unpaid time off to deal with personal or family health problems.  Most low-income workers have not vacation, sick leave, or PTO (Paid Time Off).

The United States in among the 3 countries (out of 178 – the others are Swaziland and Papua New Guinea) that do not mandate maternity paid leave.  And only 11% of private sector employees and 17% of public sector employees have access to paid leave through their employer. 

Specific key findings of the report include:

¬   Women who report taking paid leave are more likely to be working 9 to 12 months after a child’s birth than are those who report taking no leave at all (“non‐leave takers”).

¬   Paid family leave increases wages for women with children.  Women who report leaves of 30 or more days are 54% more likely to report wage increases in the year following the child’s birth than are women who take no leave at all.

¬   Women who return to work after a paid leave have a 39% lower likelihood of receiving public assistance and a 40% lower likelihood of food stamp receipt in the year following the child’s birth, when compared to those who return to work and take no leave at all.

¬   Men who return to work after a paid family leave have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving public assistance and food stamps in the year following the child’s birth when compared to those who return to work and take no family leave at all.

Linda Houser of the Center for Women and Work summarizes the positive economic benefit of paid leave policies:  "While we have known for a long time about the maternal and infant health benefits of leave policies, we can now link paid family leave to greater labor force attachment and increased wages for women, as well as to reduced spending by businesses in the form of employee replacement costs, and by governments in the form of public assistance."

Forbes magazine sums up the economic benefits of paid leave in this way:

1.     Paid family leave addresses a reality that directly impacts every business and should be planned for strategically, uniformly and deliberately,

2.     Paid family leave is NOT a tax, but income replacement insurance program funded by employees at minimal cost, and

3.     We are paying for a cost for caregiving already - indirectly and inefficiently, through employee turnover, retraining, and workplace productivity.

This is the type of information Chrysalis works to provide to policy makers through SOLUTIONS, our annual legislative breakfast.  Our work is to provide factual, objective information that should be taken into account when decisions – state, local, individual – are being made that affect girls, women, and working families.

Thank you for being a leader in this work.

If you’d like to read the full report:  http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/Pay_Matters_-_Positive_Economic_Impacts_of_Paid_Family_L.pdf?docID=9681

Children with High Needs

Recently, the Child and Family Policy Center issued a report documenting the challenges faced by many of Iowa’s children and their families.  The report, "A Baseline on Iowa's Young Children: Capturing the Demand for Early-Childhood Services" notes that Iowa has one of the nation’s highest rates of children with one or both parents working, and an increasing number of single parent families.  These are just 2 of the many factors that contribute to stress within the family and affecting young children.

Although a majority of Iowa children begin school in good health and with appropriate cognitive, language, and social/emotional development – termed “school readiness” – to be prepared to engage in learning.  There is, however, a significant share of Iowa children who are dramatically behind their peers and require special assistance to “catch up.”

Nationally, 56% of children begin school behind peers in at least one measure (cognitive, social/emotional, or physical), and 21% are behind in 2 or more areas – requiring significant school time and investment in remediation.  These facts led researchers to question whether it is possible to identify these children early and provide support and assistance that will reduce this trend.  A tremendous amount of data points to identifying and responding to high-need children through the family.

Here are what the report terms “Top-line Findings” in defining children with high needs:

•     There is no one measure that captures “need” among children; rather a cluster of characteristics that contribute to good or bad outcomes.  On average, the prevalence of poor early-childhood outcomes is highest among children of less-educated, unmarried or adolescent parents, parents who are depressed, parents with limited incomes who have difficulty meeting basic needs, and among children with special needs themselves.

•     A significant share of Iowa families face economic stress; many are headed by young and less-educated parents.  More than 40 percent of Iowa’s young children live in households below 200 percent of poverty, a realistic measure of what it takes to support a family.  Nearly one in five (19 percent of the total) live in households below 100 percent of poverty ($22,314 for a family of four in 2010).  In 2010, 17 percent of Iowa first-time births, and 8 percent of total births, were to adolescent mothers, almost all of whom were unmarried with less than a high school diploma.

•    Another significant share of Iowa children have special health needs.  In fact, 21 percent of Iowa children four months to five years of age are at moderate or high risk of developmental, behavioral or social delays. Based on national research, we know over 50 percent of young children begin kindergarten behind in at least one area of special need

and over 20 percent have multiple needs that require even greater levels of support.

As we know, the United Way of Central Iowa’s Women’s Leadership Connection has supported early childhood education as a key priority for the past 10 years, assisting with accreditation of early learning centers and preschools, facility improvements, book drives, teacher training, and volunteer readers.  Several Chrysalis Board members have participated in this tremendous project.

The work of Chrysalis takes place in prevention efforts through Chrysalis After-School, which we created and have funded since 1998.  Our goal is to assure that girls gain the knowledge and skills to become resilient and successful women – overcoming and/or avoiding these “top-line findings" that cause the next generation (their families) to face these tremendous challenges.  Since we began, nearly 6,000 adolescent girls have been part of this powerful program.  It’s the best investment in the future we can possibly make.

Gender Pay Disparity

Terry Hernandez, Executive Director of Chrysalis, just completed a television interview with WHO TV13 regarding the continued gender pay disparity.  When she asked the reporter what prompted interest in this issue, she noted the report in today's DES MOINES REGISTER listing salaries of state employees.

Once again, we need to count down to the 21st name on this list to find the first female: women's head basketball coach Lisa Bluder.  This is distressing enough, but our frustration should be compounded by the fact that her annual salary is less than half the salary of the lowest paid men's head basketball coach - and in this case, former men's basketball coach Todd Lickliter.

In the recently- released report SHE MATTERS, it was reported that in Iowa, women still make only 79% of what a man with equal education and experience is paid.  Calculating what this inequity means in today's dollars, if a woman (average salary $34,534) were to use the dollars represented by the gap (average salary for a man is $43,872), she could buy one of the following:

- 2,312 more gallons of gasoline

- 82 more weeks worth of groceries

- 14 more months of rent payments

- 8 more months of mortgage and utility payments

- 29 more months of family health insurance premiums

Today Chrysalis presented this information - in addition to the other disparities of note - to a group of women in higher education across the state, then at a workshop on teen pregnancy prevention.  We agree that, even though the Equal Pay Act was signed nearly 50 years ago, we are still far from being paid equally when our experience and education are the same.

Our work continues to be both to educate our community and stakeholders about issues like this, and to provide solutions to such problems.  Even more important, then, is our work teaching girls to advocate for themselves and be bold in asking for what they need, our work helping women become employed in "nontraditional" jobs that may pay higher wages, and our work in the corporate community to help leaders understand the reality and create workplaces that are more female- and family-friendly.

Simple things like flexible work schedules, onsite services such as ATMs or child care, and family medical leave will help keep women in the workplace as a skilled talent pool.  And these are the types of workplace benefits new young professionals should request as they seek careers.

Women and Business in Iowa

According to our report SHE MATTERS: 2012 Status of women and Girls in Iowa, a 2012 report by American Express tracked the overall growth and growth by industry of women-owned businesses across the country.  In the report, Iowa was listed as last in the nation in revenue growth of women-owned businesses, and second to last in the nation for increase in the number of firms and overall employment by women-owned businesses.

But the national picture is much more reassuring.  This week, I received another article prepared by American Express OPEN, 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Women-Owned Businesses, that provides benchmarks from studies of women-owned businesses in an effort to encourage more women to put their business plans into action, and to provide a more accurate picture of the business environment.

Here are the “10 things:”

1.       In the past 15 years, the number of women-owned businesses grew by 54%; there are now 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the United States (more than the number of people in 50% of the world’s countries).

2.      Despite owning nearly 30% of U.S. businesses, women attract only 5% of the nation’s equity capital; in first-year funding, women receive 80% less capital than men.

3.       Women-owned businesses employ 7.7 million people - 40% more people than three largest employers — McDonald’s, IBM and Wal-Mart — combined (this is a 9% increase in employment over the past 15 years).

4.      Women-owned firms generate revenues of $1.3 trillion. Over the past 15 years, women-owned businesses saw 58% increase in revenue, from $546 billion to $1.3 trillion now - more than the combined market cap of Apple, Microsoft, GE, Google and Sony.  Revenue has grown more than twice the amount of U.S. population growth during the same period of time.

5.       The industries with the fastest growth and greatest share of women-owned firms are educational services, health care and social assistance, and entertainment and recreation.

6.      In seven out of 13 of the most populous industries, women-owned firms are exceeding overall growth.

7.       The top states for women-owned businesses are Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming and North Dakota; top cities are Sacramento, Riverside, San Antonio, Houston, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

8.      2% of women-owned businesses bring in more than $1 million in annual revenue, versus 5% of all firms.

9.      As they reach 5-9 employees or earn $250,000, women-owned businesses experience faltering growth.

10.   Of women-owned businesses, 5.5% used a loan to get started, compared to 10.7% overall.

As a next step in our ongoing work to address the issues reported in SHE MATTERS, Chrysalis and the Iowa Women’s Leadership Project are creating a handbook of recommendations for elected officials, communities, and individuals to use in order to take action.  The handbook will be entitled If SHE MATTERS to You, Here’s What You Can Do, and it will be printed for our distribution this fall.

We Are Making Progress

We’ve long known that equal rights – women’s, civil, gay – are continuing struggles for what so many of us believe is “right.”  But a recent article in The New York Times frames equal rights as being strong for our economy.

Research presented by 4 U.S. economists makes the case that in the last 50 years, 20% of increased productivity in our country can be credited to women and blacks.  Changes that have affected both populations – and the equal talents they bring to the workplace – have tremendously increased the availability of highly skilled and enterprising professionals.  This is referred to by researchers as “improved allocation of talent.”

This swell in the “talent pool” and its effect on our economy is confirmed by a 2009 report, The Business of Empowering Women, based on a survey of 2,300 senior private sector executives conducted by McKinsey and Company.  The report asked corporate respondents, “Do you expect your company’s engagement with women to increase the company’s profits?”  

Attracting and retaining female employees is also an effective business strategy, according to McKinsey.  Their research  demonstrates that the presence of gender- and race-diverse leadership correlates with stronger financial and organizational performance.  Companies with greater leadership diversity have reported operating margins twice as high as those with little or no female leadership, and there is a strong correlation between the percentage of top managers who are female and a company’s return on assets and equity.

Although we certainly aren’t a gender- or race-neutral society yet, significant shifts have occurred over the last half-century, note the researchers.  The New York Times article notes:

In case you are behind in your viewing of “Mad Men,” the television drama set in 1960s New York, (the show) is a reminder of how truly supreme white men were in the United States half a century ago. In 1960, 96% of lawyers were white men, 94% of doctors were white men and 86% percent of managers were white men. The subsequent 50 years were a revolution.  By 2008, white men accounted for just 61% of lawyers, 63% of doctors and 57% of managers.

“We’ve come a long way, baby.”

Thank you for being part of this movement.