Where the Mommy Track Crosses the Daughter Track
the population is only getting older, not younger, and with diseases like alzheimer's requiring care that is not cheap or free or subsidized by employers, it's time that people begin to address the difficult issues regarding elderly care that doesn't happen in a nursing home.
from The New York Times
October 28, 2008, 11:51 am
Where the Mommy Track Crosses the Daughter Track
By Jane Gross
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when working women made child care benefits a key part of the feminist agenda, it has become routine for companies to provide maternity leaves, job sharing and pre-tax accounts to pay for child care. These days, the accommodations offered to those of us caring for elderly parents often are modeled on these kinds of child care benefits. But the so-called “mommy track” and “daughter track” are more dissimilar than similar, and the child care paradigm does not always work to benefit adult caregivers.
For instance, most pregnant workers know when they will take maternity leave and for how long. But someone responsible for an aged parent faces an unpredictable series of crises. When the unexpected happens, the caregiver must use some of the time off granted under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act or depend on the good will of a supervisor.
Or take flexible spending accounts, which permit the use of pre-tax dollars for dependent care. I.R.S. regulations require that the dependent receive full financial support and live with the employee. That is generally the case with children, but rarely with elderly parents.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that corporate America is losing billions of dollars because of the soaring number of employees whose responsibilities for elderly parents result in absenteeism, lost productivity, premature retirement, stress-related health problems and other consequences of attending to unpredictable crises during working hours.
These costs have been calculated by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, along with the National Alliance for Caregiving, and the bad news predictably is getting worse as the population ages. In 1997, overall costs to employers ranged from $11.5 billion to $29 billion a year, depending on how many hours a week of hands-on care employees were providing. By 2006, both numbers had jumped by more than $4 billion a year; costs ranged from $17.1 billion to $33.6 billion and are still rising.
Here are some examples of ways that employers are impacted when workers are torn between jobs and caregiving, and as a result reduce their hours, retire early, or suffer both mentally and physically from the stress.
* The cost of replacing experienced employees who quit: $6.6 billion in 2006, up from $4.9 billion in 1997.
* Workday interruptions: $6.3 billion in 2006, up from $3.7 billion in 1997.
* Absenteeism: $2.5 billion in 2009, up from $885 million in 1997.
(Using from a simple online tool, employers can estimate how much money they are losing based on the size of a business, the average hourly wage and the number of employees with caregiving responsibilities.)
Reducing those costs will require companies to rethink many of the options they offer to employees. One benefit with real utility for caregivers is back-up care, usually provided by a company under contract with an employer. Any time an employee has a temporary need for child care or eldercare - say, a sick babysitter or a home health aide who fails to show up - he or she can get a temporary replacement, by the next morning, by making one phone call. The cost of the replacement care generally is subsidized by the employer.
One of the nation’s leading providers of back-up care is the Work Options Group , based in Superior, Colo., whose clients include Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, Princeton University and Prudential Financial. This year, Work Options will serve 600,000 employees, a 30 percent increase in just two years. But according to C.E.O. Cindy Carrillo, 90 percent of the employees using the service are mothers (and some fathers), rather than daughters (and some sons).
I asked Ms. Carrillo why this was so, given the number of employees nationwide with responsibility for aging parents. (Estimates range from 16 to 20 million.) On explanation, she said, is the average age of employees at the companies she works with: 35 to 37 years old at high-tech or telecommunications concerns, and 45 to 47 years old in more old-line businesses. In either case, she said, they are more likely to have young children than dependent parents.
But numbers tell only a small part of the story. Those on the mommy track, she added, are far more comfortable seeking help from their human resource departments and far more likely, now as in the past, to press for what they need if they’re not getting it. And few companies want to be seen as politically incorrect regarding child care.
By contrast, Ms. Carrillo said, those caring for parents (as she is) tend to hold their situations together with “rubber bands and bubble gum” and keep their problems to themselves - knowing from experience that some bosses and colleagues avert their eyes or change the subject when talk turns to incontinence or dementia.
Ms. Carrillo noted, too, that few of us plan in advance for the time and money we may have to spend on eldercare, arguably because we don’t want to think about it and are hoping it will never come up. Compare that to the elaborate preparation for the arrival of a new baby, Ms. Carrillo said, including child care arrangements and college savings accounts. Denial, then, affects how workers use these benefits even when they are offered.
“We close one eye, look the other way, handle one hurdle at a time and don’t realize how much trouble we’re in until it accelerates,” Ms. Carrillo said.
This mindset may account for the absence of activism among caregivers of the elderly, who have not made their voices heard as working mothers did decades ago.
“Nobody wants to think about it beforehand,” Ms. Carrillo said. “When you’re in the throes of it you don’t have time. And when you’re done, you don’t want to go back there again.”
from The New York Times
October 28, 2008, 11:51 am
Where the Mommy Track Crosses the Daughter Track
By Jane Gross
Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when working women made child care benefits a key part of the feminist agenda, it has become routine for companies to provide maternity leaves, job sharing and pre-tax accounts to pay for child care. These days, the accommodations offered to those of us caring for elderly parents often are modeled on these kinds of child care benefits. But the so-called “mommy track” and “daughter track” are more dissimilar than similar, and the child care paradigm does not always work to benefit adult caregivers.
For instance, most pregnant workers know when they will take maternity leave and for how long. But someone responsible for an aged parent faces an unpredictable series of crises. When the unexpected happens, the caregiver must use some of the time off granted under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act or depend on the good will of a supervisor.
Or take flexible spending accounts, which permit the use of pre-tax dollars for dependent care. I.R.S. regulations require that the dependent receive full financial support and live with the employee. That is generally the case with children, but rarely with elderly parents.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that corporate America is losing billions of dollars because of the soaring number of employees whose responsibilities for elderly parents result in absenteeism, lost productivity, premature retirement, stress-related health problems and other consequences of attending to unpredictable crises during working hours.
These costs have been calculated by the MetLife Mature Market Institute, along with the National Alliance for Caregiving, and the bad news predictably is getting worse as the population ages. In 1997, overall costs to employers ranged from $11.5 billion to $29 billion a year, depending on how many hours a week of hands-on care employees were providing. By 2006, both numbers had jumped by more than $4 billion a year; costs ranged from $17.1 billion to $33.6 billion and are still rising.
Here are some examples of ways that employers are impacted when workers are torn between jobs and caregiving, and as a result reduce their hours, retire early, or suffer both mentally and physically from the stress.
* The cost of replacing experienced employees who quit: $6.6 billion in 2006, up from $4.9 billion in 1997.
* Workday interruptions: $6.3 billion in 2006, up from $3.7 billion in 1997.
* Absenteeism: $2.5 billion in 2009, up from $885 million in 1997.
(Using from a simple online tool, employers can estimate how much money they are losing based on the size of a business, the average hourly wage and the number of employees with caregiving responsibilities.)
Reducing those costs will require companies to rethink many of the options they offer to employees. One benefit with real utility for caregivers is back-up care, usually provided by a company under contract with an employer. Any time an employee has a temporary need for child care or eldercare - say, a sick babysitter or a home health aide who fails to show up - he or she can get a temporary replacement, by the next morning, by making one phone call. The cost of the replacement care generally is subsidized by the employer.
One of the nation’s leading providers of back-up care is the Work Options Group , based in Superior, Colo., whose clients include Microsoft, Verizon Wireless, Princeton University and Prudential Financial. This year, Work Options will serve 600,000 employees, a 30 percent increase in just two years. But according to C.E.O. Cindy Carrillo, 90 percent of the employees using the service are mothers (and some fathers), rather than daughters (and some sons).
I asked Ms. Carrillo why this was so, given the number of employees nationwide with responsibility for aging parents. (Estimates range from 16 to 20 million.) On explanation, she said, is the average age of employees at the companies she works with: 35 to 37 years old at high-tech or telecommunications concerns, and 45 to 47 years old in more old-line businesses. In either case, she said, they are more likely to have young children than dependent parents.
But numbers tell only a small part of the story. Those on the mommy track, she added, are far more comfortable seeking help from their human resource departments and far more likely, now as in the past, to press for what they need if they’re not getting it. And few companies want to be seen as politically incorrect regarding child care.
By contrast, Ms. Carrillo said, those caring for parents (as she is) tend to hold their situations together with “rubber bands and bubble gum” and keep their problems to themselves - knowing from experience that some bosses and colleagues avert their eyes or change the subject when talk turns to incontinence or dementia.
Ms. Carrillo noted, too, that few of us plan in advance for the time and money we may have to spend on eldercare, arguably because we don’t want to think about it and are hoping it will never come up. Compare that to the elaborate preparation for the arrival of a new baby, Ms. Carrillo said, including child care arrangements and college savings accounts. Denial, then, affects how workers use these benefits even when they are offered.
“We close one eye, look the other way, handle one hurdle at a time and don’t realize how much trouble we’re in until it accelerates,” Ms. Carrillo said.
This mindset may account for the absence of activism among caregivers of the elderly, who have not made their voices heard as working mothers did decades ago.
“Nobody wants to think about it beforehand,” Ms. Carrillo said. “When you’re in the throes of it you don’t have time. And when you’re done, you don’t want to go back there again.”