Work, Family and Children’s Health In a series of studies on work, family, and health, supported by Shannon and FIRST grants from the National Institutes of Health, we focused on determining how social and working conditions affect the ability of working parents to care for the health and well-being of their children as well as on analyzing potential policy approaches. More than one in three families have family caregiving needs requiring 2 weeks or more of their time each year. Children recover more rapidly from illnesses and injuries when their parents are present. While the importance of parental involvement in caring for sick children has been well documented, little attention has been paid to the factors that influence whether parents can be involved in the care for their children’s health. Our studies examine whether parents who are currently working can spend time with and become involved in the care of their children when they are sick. We conducted original research on low- and middle-income families to examine whether or not they stayed home with their children when they were sick. Fully 50% of those parents with paid sick or paid vacation leave stayed at home with their sick children while only 13% of parents without paid sick or paid vacation leave stayed home while their children were sick. Marital status, family income, and parental education had no effect on the likelihood that a parent would stay home after accounting for the effects of paid leave. Given the importance of paid leave, our research team conducted studies on the amount of paid sick and vacation leave that employed parents have. Our findings: The availability of sick leave is distributed unequally between social classes. Although 20% of working mothers who did not live in poverty lacked sick leave, 38% of mothers who did live in poverty lacked sick leave in a given year. Furthermore, more than half of the mothers* in the study had less than 1 week of paid sick leave. More than 2/3 of employed mothers lacked leave some of the time over the five-year period of the study. Nearly 60% of poor working mothers had no sick leave during the entire five-year period of study. Ensuring that all employed parents have access to paid leave will greatly help them fulfill their children’s health needs. * The working conditions faced by fathers are equally critical. We hope the Department of Labor will collect similar linked data on fathers and children. As this data is currently unavailable, this study was limited to mothers. For more details on the findings described above, see: Earle A, Kuehnhoff A, and Heymann SJ. A Comparative Analysis of Paid Leave for the Health Needs of Workers and Their Families Around the World. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. Forthcoming. Heymann SJ, Penrose K, and Earle A. Meeting Children’s Needs: How Does the U.S. Measure Up? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. Forthcoming. Heymann SJ, Vo PH, and Bergstrom CA. Child Care Providers’ Experiences Caring for Sick Children: Implications for Public Policy. Early Child Development and Care. 2002; 172(1): 1-8. Heymann SJ. The Widening Gap: Why Working Families Are in Jeopardy and What Can Be Done About It. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Heymann SJ, Toomey S, and Furstenberg, F. Working Parents: What Factors are Involved in Their Ability to Take Time Off From Work When Their Children Are Sick?. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 1999; 153(August): 870-874. Heymann, SJ, Earle A, and Egleston, B. Parental Availability for the Care of Sick Children. Pediatrics, 1996; 98(2): 226-230. Back to U.S. Initiatives
		This page is maintained by The Project on Global Working Families. Copyright 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
	HSPH home