Work-Family Conflicts

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Working Moms' Winter Math Is Getting Tougher

Working mothers remain disproportionately responsible for raising children, and no one can work and take care of sick kids at the same time. In the coming months, the tripledemic of COVID, the flu, and RSV will pull a lot of working mothers out of the office for days at a stretch, compounding the obstacles that women already face.

Kathryn A. Edwards

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How the Coronavirus Changed the Childcare Debate

Policymakers have long had evidence that childcare enables mothers to work. What the COVID-19 pandemic taught everyone is how the lack of childcare can be a disastrous constraint.

Kathryn A. Edwards

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Helping Mothers Return to Work Is a Gender Equality Issue

Employers and policymakers play a crucial role in ensuring that women are not unnecessarily disadvantaged when they have children. Policies such as access to family leave, job protection, and childcare options can play a large role.

Michaela Bruckmayer, Joanna Hofman @JoannaBHofman

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Supporting Working Parents Could Accelerate Recovery

Since the COVID-19 recession started last February, almost 3 million women have left the labor force. With vaccines rolling out, will they go back to work? There are several policies that could help.

Melanie A. Zaber @MelanieZaber, Kathryn A. Edwards

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COVID-19 Gave Managers a Look at Our Home Lives. Will They Now Penalize Women?

The pandemic gave managers a window into the struggles of working women. What will they do with this information? Will they accommodate women by making exceptions to their established norms? Or will they do the harder work of remaking their culture so women are no longer the exception?

Lisa Abraham, Kathryn A. Edwards

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Women Are Leaving the Labor Force in Record Numbers

The economic downturn during the pandemic is affecting women workers measurably more than men. There were 2.2 million fewer women in the labor force in October 2020 than there were last October. Investing in childcare and expanding labor laws could keep women employed and buoy the entire economy.

Kathryn A. Edwards

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Sitting It Out? Or Pushed Out? Women Are Leaving the Labor Force in Record Numbers

Added to long-standing challenges such as securing child care and combating pay disparities, the economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit women workers measurably harder than men. The consequences highlight just how much policy has failed to keep up with women's progress.

Kathryn A. Edwards

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National Security and Workplace Flexibility Aren't Incompatible After All

For years, the U.S. Defense Department dismissed workplace flexibility as being incompatible with national security. But during the pandemic, flexibility became a matter of survival for all employers, including Defense. The question now is whether it will keep recent adaptations or go back to its rigid ways.

Lisa Davis

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Back to School: Working Parents Will Need Help from Employers

Reopening schools would provide much-needed child care for parents who need to work, help feed 30 million U.S. children, and prevent further inequitable learning losses. But it also means exposing more kids to the virus. How can families and employers prepare for the disruptions that lie ahead?

Charlene A. Wong, Laura J. Faherty @LauraFahertyMD

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Protests and Police Reform, Facial Recognition, Gun Policies: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on protests and police reform after the killing of George Floyd, facial recognition bans, gun policies that likely reduce deaths, and more.

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Working Moms at Risk of Being Left Behind in Economic Recovery

Being a working parent was hard enough before the pandemic. If COVID-19 intensifies the perception that parenting is at odds with work, then there may be devastating career consequences for working mothers.

Melanie A. Zaber @MelanieZaber, Kathryn A. Edwards

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Reopened Offices Won’t Mean Back-to-Normal for Caregivers

As some workplaces start to reopen and work-from-home guidelines relax, corporate leaders may hope things will quickly get back to normal. But for employees who are also caregivers, that's likely not going to be the case.

Heather J. Williams @HeatherJWill, Bobbi Thomason

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Can We Emerge from COVID-19 with a Healthier Work Culture?

American families want greater choices in determining how their work and their families fit together. Post-pandemic, can we create a system that fits workers? If so, we have the opportunity to emerge from this crisis with both healthier employees and better performing organizations.

Bobbi Thomason, Heather J. Williams @HeatherJWill

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Parenting Through the Pandemic: Who's Working, Who's Caring for the Kids, and What Policies Might Help

To help inform policy decisions that could help working parents affected by COVID-19, we examined the U.S. Department of Labor's Current Population Survey and recent coronavirus relief acts. Our review shows us what aid working parents might expect and what kinds of aid policymakers might consider going forward.

Kathryn A. Edwards, Grace Evans, et al.

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State of the Union, OxyContin, Appalachia: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on insights from RAND after the State of the Union, public-health impacts of reformulating OxyContin, STEM jobs in Appalachia, and more.

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Work vs. Family: How Some Countries Lead the Way in Flexible Working

Many families in the European Union struggle to balance their professional and domestic responsibilities. Harmony between work and home could be an important way to help children and adults and promote a more prosperous society at large. More action could be taken to support work-life balance for working parents.

Barbara Janta, Harry McNeill Adams, et al.

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Why Europe's Work-Life Balance Proposal Could Be in Limbo for Years

The work-life balance proposal has a chance of having an impact on the labor markets and welfare systems in Europe. However, given the variation in policies across member states and levels of political support among key stakeholders, the proposal may end up stuck in negotiations.

Barbara Janta

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Is It Time to Extend Maternity Leave Across Europe?

Any policy solution for extending maternity leave must strike a balance between protecting infant health through extended breastfeeding and mitigating any potentially negative impact on the mother's career progression or increased costs to business.

Lucy Strang, Miriam Broeks

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UK and Europe Are Behind the Times for Single Mothers and Their Children

Single parents head 10.4 percent of households with children across Europe — 20.4 percent in the UK — and the socioeconomic gap between single- and two-parent households continues to grow. Accessible and flexible work policies are needed to improve employment conditions for single parents, especially mothers.

Chloe E. Bird @ChloeBirdPhD, Kai Ruggeri

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Seven Chances to Meet Europe's Employment Targets

The EU will fail to meet the Europe 2020 Strategy target of having 75 percent of people between the ages of 20 and 64 in work unless enough women are encouraged to enter, or remain in, the workforce. Here are seven factors the new EU Commissioners responsible for gender equality and employment must address.

Melinda Mills, Stijn Hoorens @StijnHoorens