Caution: Women at Work

Women have finally caught up to men in the work force -- if only in number. Today, nearly half of all workers on U.S. payrolls are women, marking a 15 percent jump in four decades, and 40 percent of them are the primary wage earners in their households.

Most Americans support this development. According to a recent TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll, 77 percent say that a balanced work force represents a positive change for society. At the same time, 65 percent of those surveyed -- 70 percent of men and 61 percent of women -- believe that having both parents working outside the home has a negative impact on society.

So there it is, the workplace conundrum of our age: More women work than ever before, and their contributions are welcomed and highly valued. But men have not left the work force in equal numbers to stay home and assume the duties traditionally associated with female homemakers. This absence from the home, whether by choice or necessity, leaves much to be desired.

Naturally, men and women are negotiating and coordinating a new balance of responsibility. Everything is on the table -- child care, housework, cooking. But there are only so many hours in the day, and inter-spousal negotiations can only go so far. Something has to give.

For the authors of "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," recently published by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, that something is the longstanding system of institutions, policies and laws that still operates under the assumption that the man is the sole breadwinner in the family.

"Our federal government does not require employers to offer a minimum number of paid days off," write Ann O'Leary and Karen Kornbluh in the report. "Nor does it require or even incentivize employers to provide flexible work arrangements. Our child care assistance is mostly aimed at the poor and even that assistance reaches too few families. Both our basic labor standards and our social insurance system are still based on supporting 'traditional' workers and families and so do not accord protection to workers who must cut back on work to care for family members."

For nearly a half-century, advocates of a more family-friendly workplace have tried to enact reforms with very limited success. The first and last major legislation to pass through Congress was the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. But the law only offered unpaid leave to about half of all workers, limited funding for child care and no serious incentives for employers to be more flexible or accommodating.

Interestingly, in Latin America, where women's participation in the work force is below 50 percent, there has been some progress. Today, fathers in most Latin American countries have the right to paid paternity leave after a child is born, typically two to five days. Ecuador and Venezuela offer the longest paternity leaves: 10 and 14 days respectively, according to a recent report by the United Nations Development Program and the International Labour Organization. In the United States, the law only guarantees paternity leave for workers at companies with 50 or more employees -- and it is unpaid.

These are mere baby steps. Like the U.S., most Latin American governments still leave it up to individuals and employers to sort out arrangements on their own. As a result, women in those countries often opt for part-time work, informal work or self-employment, to gain the flexibility they couldn't have otherwise. But the tradeoff is that they are likely to earn less and have more difficulty advancing in their careers once they go back to work full time.

The current recession may help build momentum for significant change. The authors of "A Woman's Nation" highlight, for instance, the role that faith-based institutions can play in providing child care and other social services as community members struggle. The UNDP-ILO report also points out that "the idea of a more proactive State ensuring people's welfare has recently gained strength. This is a good starting point for developing the policies necessary to reconcile work and family life ..."

What's more, public support for reform seems to cross ideological lines. The TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll found that, with the exception of increased government funding for child care, support for new measures to improve work-life balance are equally supported by liberals and conservatives. More than 60 percent of conservatives and 80 percent of liberals surveyed agree that businesses should be required to provide paid family and medical leave, giving workers more flexibility.

Perhaps the poll's most significant -- and encouraging -- finding is that there is an increased awareness that this is not solely a women's issue. For as long as women remain underrepresented in positions of power -- women account for only 17 percent of Congress, and only 15 companies on the Fortune 500 list are run by female chief executives -- the possibilities for change will continue to rest in men's hands.