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Improving Work-Life Fit in Hourly Jobs
The Center for WorkLife Law
Women without high school degrees report higher
levels of work-family conflict than college graduates.
(Williams & Boushey 2010) Three elements create
a widespread lack of work-life fit. First, low-wage
families have higher loads of family care. Second,
they lack the financial resources to purchase stable,
reliable child- and elder-care. Third, their just-in-
time jobs just don't fit the day-to-day realities of
their lives.
A higher load of family care
Two-thirds of low-income families have no children
under 18 living at home. Many of these are "life-
cycle poor": students or others whose incomes will
rise later in life.
Of the remaining third of poor families (those
who have children), two-thirds are single parents.
(Williams & Boushey 2010) Forty percent of
managers in one study reported having employees
with children not yet in elementary school; 55.4%
had workers with elementary-school-age children;
57.6% had at least one child in middle school.
(Lambert & Henly 2010b)
The one-third of poor families who are married
typically "tag-team": one parent works one shift, the
other parent works a different shift, and each cares
for the kids while the other is at work. Poor couples
have the highest level of tag-teaming in the country.
(Williams & Boushey 2010)
Poor families are also much more likely to be
caring for an ill family member: roughly half of
the managers in one study reported having one or
more employees caring for family members other
than their own children. (Lambert & Henly 2010b)
Poor families have more, and more serious, health
problems than more affluent families. Nearly one-
third (32%) of welfare-to-work families are caring
for children with chronic illnesses. More than two-
thirds of the parents interviewed for one study were
caring for a child with either a chronic illness or a
learning disability. (Dodson, Manuel & Bravo 2002)
A study of call center workers found that nearly a
third were providing care for a disabled or elderly
relative. (Wharton, Chivers & Blair-Loy 2008) A
nurses' assistant explained, "[M]y daughter has a
seizure disorder. The baby has real bad asthma. So
there's times where I have to stay home or whatever
because she can't breathe. She's having seizures. I
think that if we come in with a doctor's note it
should be considered an excused absence--it's not."
(Gerstel 2010b)
In addition to high loads of child care and care
for ill family members, low-income families also
are more likely to be caring for elders, and to be
providing more hours of elder care. Families living
below the official poverty line are more than twice
as likely to provide more than 30 hours of unpaid
care a week to parents or parents-in-law. (Heymann
2005) Of 50- to 64-year-olds needing support for
their health and emotional needs, fully 84% rely on
informal networks of family and friends. (Gibson
2003) Nearly 60% of working caregivers say that
they have had to go to work late, leave early, or take
time off during the day to provide care. (Gibson
2003) In one case, a phone customer service
representative was fired when she failed to meet her
sales quota because of the stress caused by caring
for her dying mother, who had died by the time
the worker reached arbitration to contest her firing.
(Sprint/Central Telephone Co. of Texas, 2002).
Fragile patchworks of care
The Los Angeles County mother quoted above
had gone through seven child care providers in
15 months. (Henley & Lyons 2000, p. 700) A
Work-family conflict represents a
big problem for American mothers,
but an even bigger one for American
fathers.
Poor families have more, and more
serious, health problems than more
affluent families do.