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Public Policy, Work, and Families:
The Report of the APA Presidential Initiative on Work and Families  

  
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The World of Work Is Changing

At the same time that the demographics of the workforce are changing, with a majority of young mothers and older workers remaining in the workforce, the nature of work is also changing. According to the Aspen Institute, wage inequities are increasing, with the middle class shrinking in size. The better paying jobs require an advanced education and computer skills, which leaves workers with low levels of education and few job skills with low-wage job options. But, perhaps the greatest change over the last several decades has been in the percentage of women in job categories that had been traditionally made up of men.

Women, Men, and Job Segregation
Although poor women have always worked, and women have worked in family businesses and other informal settings for decades, these numbers were not always captured in official government records. Today, however, statistics show that the number of women and of men in the workforce are nearly equal (Bond, Thompson, Galinsky, & Protas, 2003). This growth is not limited to expansion in jobs that were traditionally women's jobs. Women are catching up and passing enrollments of men in many (but not all) fields that were traditionally made up of men. Women today have more formal education and are more likely to hold managerial positions than men, although many jobs are still segregated by gender, especially at the top. For instance, clerical work is over 90% female, while engineering is still predominantly male. Other job categories, such as law and accounting, are beginning to shift from primarily male to primarily female. There are still very few women in the top leadership positions in the corporate world and in governments throughout the world. Most of jobs that require manual labor, such as construction, mining, and truck driving (with loading and unloading), are predominately filled by men. The sex-segregation of many professional and white-collar job categories will be changing in the near future, as over 60% of all college graduates are women, and women now comprise half of medical school and law school graduates and over 75% of veterinary school graduates (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000).

Despite women's equity in many work areas, women have more complex patterns of work, complex patterns of time-outs, and interruptions in their work lives as they stop and start work to care for family members. The interruptions in the work life of women translate into substantial reductions in lifetime earnings. In a recent analysis of the gender gap in wages, researchers concluded that discrimination against women has not been eliminated and that the cost to women of wage discrimination ranges "from 62 percent when all workers are included to 36 percent when the comparison is restricted to persistent full-time workers" (Rose & Hartmann, 2004, p. 21). Because most dual-earner families need two salaries to make mortgage payments and other regular living expenses, there is no fall-back if a family member needs care (e.g., someone becomes seriously ill) and one of the earners, usually the woman, has to stop working. The consequence of having no fall-back in case of illness or other life problem for dual-earner families is a record number of bankruptcies, with more American families filing for bankruptcy every year than there are filing for divorce (Warren & Tyagi, 2003)! The male-female differential in lifetime earnings is not entirely a gender gap, as most researchers had formerly believed; instead, it might be better labeled as a "mommy gap," because it is the largest between those women with children and those without children. Although most women with significant care responsibilities (e.g., children or elder care) would like quality part-time employment, it is almost impossible to find a part-time job that pays proportionally for time worked (e.g., 50% pay for 50% work; Wenger, 2003).

Catalyst New Catalyst Study Finds Female Executives Are Just as Likely as Male Colleagues to Aspire to CEO Job. Web site: URL http://www.catalystwomen.org

Rose, S. J., & Hartmann, H. I. (2004). Still a man's labor market: The long-term labor gap. Washington, DC: Institute for Women's Policy Research. http://www.iwpr.org/

Technology, Wages, and Education
Technology is changing where and how we work, blurring the boundaries between work and home. For the highly educated elite, technology has redefined the workplace, often blurring the line between work and home. For instance, employees are working at home, shopping at work, attending school at home and at work, and learning new job skills from their children and grandchildren. Electronic mail, cell phones, and fax machines, coupled with the expectation that a dedicated employee should be readily accessible at all times, have encroached upon family life and personal time (Jackson, 2002).

Low-wage workers face a different set of problems from middle- or high-wage earners, as they need to work longer hours to pay bills and often face joblessness, unemployment, and the constant threat that low-wage jobs will be sent to other countries where labor is even cheaper. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census data, approximately one third of U.S. workers earn less than $15,000 per year and an additional 13% earn between that and $25,000. Most low-wage earners have no health care, paid sick leave, or other benefits, so a sick child or even a flat tire can set off a financial crisis that can take months to recover.

Workers with high levels of education are better equipped to use the increasing and changing technology in the workplace and consequently are able to get better paying jobs. Thus, with technology constantly changing, lifelong learning is a necessity as increasing numbers of jobs require increasing levels of education. In the United States, there is a serious shortage of workers with high-level skills. Low-wage workers cannot afford the time and money for the training that would give them the more valuable skills. The result is that corporations are prevented from upgrading technology because of the low educational and technical skill levels of their employees. A model of lifelong learning for employment requires an education that builds learner and earner confidence and motivation for future learning and not just specific job skills.

Work Hours
The United States recently passed Japan as the industrialized country with the longest work hours (International Labour Organization, 1999). The concept of an 8-hour workday is changing--it is getting longer for the lowest-wage workers when they can find additional work and for the highest paid workers. In a recent national survey conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide of 560 adults who work outside the home, 40% report that they work overtime or take work home with them at least once a week, 17% report that they work overtime or take work home with them every day, and 15% report that they work overtime or take work home with them 2-3 times a week. In addition, one in four employees is regularly scheduled to work on a weekend day (Bond el al.).

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