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Our research in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) We conducted the first studies to take
a detailed look at how parents’ working conditions vary across the
country by social class, as well as the first studies to look at the
relationship between the work schedules and working conditions of parents and
their children’s educational outcomes. To carry out these studies, the
research team analyzed data collected by the Labor Department on the work
schedules and hours, plus the available paid leave and job flexibility, for
over four thousand working parents over a six-year period in the National
Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The NLSY is sponsored by the Department of
Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and is conducted in collaboration
with the Center for Human Resource Research at Analyzing data collected in the NLSY has several important advantages. First, the NLSY enables us to study directly what resources are available to families. Frequently, surveys examine what benefits companies offer without asking what benefits families receive. At first glance, it might seem that these should be the same thing. However, many companies offer benefits only to some of their employees—for example, to those who have worked for a certain length of time, who are not temporary or part-time workers, or who have a minimum job grade. Thus, company managers might say they offer paid leave, but a significant number of their employees might not be receiving that leave. The second major advantage of the NLSY is that it allows us to learn accurately about what resources are available to working Americans across social class. Many previous studies of working families had interviewed primarily middle-income families. Both because of its inclusion of a nationally representative sample, and because for many years it contained an additional oversampling of poor families, the NLSY provides detailed data on the working conditions faced by low-income, as well as middle-income, working families. Third, the NLSY allows us the most detailed examination of the working conditions faced by high-need, as well as resource-poor, families. Parents who have a child with a chronic health problem, learning disabilities, or behavioral or emotional problems face greater demands on their time. The NLSY conducts detailed developmental and educational examinations of children, in addition to collecting information on health, behavioral, developmental, and educational problems.
While concrete working conditions are critically important, they tell only part of the story. The attitudes of supervisors and co-workers dramatically influence whether employees can take advantage of available paid leave and flexibility to meet the needs of family members. Also of utmost importance is the support that family, friends, and neighbors offer employees who need to fulfill caretaking responsibilities. With support from the MacArthur Foundation Network on Successful Midlife Development, we focused on examining the conditions working families face across social class, gender, and age groups. The members of the network, consisting of researchers from across the United States and Europe, conducted the Survey of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), which involved a nationally representative sample of 2,130 employed adults aged twenty-five to seventy-four and 1,100 employed adults caring for children, parents, or parents-in-law. The survey included both a telephone interview and a lengthy written questionnaire. In MIDUS, we collected information on working conditions, work-family interactions, relationships with co-workers and supervisors, and workplace and outside support. Among other subjects, MIDUS explored the degree of job autonomy each respondent had. The respondents were asked how often they could decide how to accomplish their tasks at work, determine what tasks to do, plan their work environment, and make decisions about work in general. These aspects of the work environment generally are not measured well or at all in other surveys. Data were collected in MIDUS on the extent to which working adults could rely on family, friends, and neighbors for help. Urban Working Families Study National surveys are the best way to determine how many people are affected, how common a problem is, and how frequently people have resources available. But only in-depth studies can fully examine the realities that specific working Americans and their families face. In the Urban Working Families study we conducted over 200 in-depth interviews of working families, childcare providers, and employers. In this study, we interviewed a random sample of families who were using city services. In addition, the medical records of children were carefully reviewed. Families were eligible for this study if all parents living in the household had worked at least twenty hours per week for at least six months during the preceding year. Eighty-two percent of parents who were invited to participate in this representative sample agreed to participate, and ninety-five percent of those who agreed to participate completed both the closed-item survey and the in-depth, semistructured interview. Nonrespondents were asked a brief series of demographic questions to determine whether there were any significant differences between those who chose to participate and those who did not. There were no significant differences between respondents and nonrespondents in terms of race, education, health-care coverage, marital status, number of hours worked per week, employment status, age of respondent, age of children, or number of children. In addition, we interviewed a supplementary sample of low-income families living in subsidized housing and another sample of unilingual Spanish speakers. In open-ended interviews, families were asked about almost every aspect of the relationship between their work and family lives. In addition, we interviewed a representative sample of childcare providers and employers. We conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews of childcare providers at every publicly sponsored preschool and afterschool program in the city studied. In addition, childcare providers from private centers and home-based childcare providers were interviewed. Urban childcare providers caring for both preschool and school-age children were interviewed for this study because they provide a unique source of information regarding whether children are sent to childcare or school sick and the impact of having sick children in their care. No previous study, to our knowledge, has interviewed childcare providers on this subject. Childcare providers were asked about the daily care they provided for children and the issues they faced in meeting children’s health and developmental needs. In addition, study participants filled out closed-item demographic questionnaires. All interviews were taped, transcribed, and analyzed using segment review and content analyses by multiple readers. Of the thirty-two childcare providers interviewed, 34 percent worked in home-based preschool care, 31 percent in school-age afterschool programs, 22 percent in public preschool childcare centers, and 13 percent in private preschool childcare centers. Of childcare centers where interviews were conducted, 53 percent were publicly funded; 34 percent were private, for-profit; and 13 percent were private, nonprofit. A random sample of employers, stratified by firm size, was selected from a complete list of the city’s employers. In-depth face-to-face interviews and closed-item surveys were conducted with each employer. Employers were asked about a range of issues related to employees’ successes and difficulties on the job, including how extensively family needs affect the workplace, which family needs most affect the workplace, who is affected and how when family needs arise, and when it is or is not the responsibility of the employer to provide assistance. The employer study had a response rate of 74 percent. For more information, please see: Heymann SJ. The Widening Gap: Why Working
Families Are in Jeopardy and What Can Be Done About It.
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This page is maintained by The Project on Global Working Families. Copyright 2002 by the
President and Fellows of |
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