Congressional Testimony on the Challenges Facing American Workers

The labor supply of parents has increased dramatically over the last generation. In 1970, almost two-thirds of married couples had one spouse at home to handle family needs; by 2006, 61 percent of married couples with children under the age of 18 had both parents working outside the home.[ii] In addition, parents are working longer hours. Work hours for both mothers and fathers increased by about one to three hours per week between the mid-1970s and the early years of this decade. [iii] As a result, total time on the job for the average family increased by about 12 hours per week during roughly the same period. By 2002, dual-earner couples with children spent about 91 hours a week in paid and unpaid work.[iv]

While the additional work hours are not necessarily bad for all families, there is also evidence that most parents are working more hours than they desire, often under pressure from their employers. Roughly two-thirds of men and women say that they would like to work fewer hours; three-quarters of those reporting moderate-to-high levels of work-to-life conflict say they would like to work fewer hours.[v] The gap between actual and desired hours of work is not trivial; men and women indicating a wish to work less averaged 50 hours of actual work, as opposed to 31 hours of desired work. Moreover, according to the Families and Work Institute, it appears that over half of those working more than their desired number of hours are doing so due to employer preference rather than for personal or financial reasons.[vi] As further evidence that many workers are on the clock more than they wish, the institute reports that 25 percent of workers do not take all the vacation time to which they are entitled due to job demands.[vii]

Employment demands also place increasing pressure on family time as technology allows work issues to impinge on nonwork hours. Both a blessing and a curse, tools such as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) allow some employees greater freedom to respond to work demands without going to the office, but they also make it harder for many parents to separate work and family time. Forty percent of workers say they use technology for their jobs during nonwork hours. Furthermore, being wired to the office is not always by choice—over a fifth of workers say they are required to be available to their employers during nonwork hours.[viii] By some estimates, this adds up to a full month of extra work annually in addition to that performed during standard office hours.[ix]

The timing of work hours can also add to work-family conflict. In roughly a third of families one parent works the late shift, and in nearly half of families one parent works on weekends.[x] Some parents may find shift work beneficial due to higher pay, greater ease in sharing child-care responsibilities, or more flexibility with respect to other commitments such as attending school. However, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, roughly two-thirds of shift workers have not sought irregular hours for these benefits, but rather are compelled to work such schedules because the job requires it and they could not find other work.[xi]

Several studies have sought to assess the detrimental effects of growing work demands in terms of the reduced time parents have for their children. However, we still lack a complete understanding of whether children receive more or less time from their parents now than in the past. Different studies seem to draw inconsistent conclusions about the amount of time children and their parents spend together. For example, a landmark 1999 report by the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) noted with alarm that parental time available for children had fallen by 22 hours a week since the 1960s. Yet, several recent studies report that both mothers and resident fathers are spending more time in child-care activities now than in the 1960s.[xii]

It is only upon considering more closely the outcomes examined across studies that one sees how both conclusions may be true. While the CEA report looked at potential time available for children, which is almost certainly in shorter supply now than in the past, more recent studies look at time parents actually spend with children, which appears to be rising nonetheless, as parents do whatever it takes to meet their obligations both at home and the office.

Adding to the mix of findings and conclusions are those studies that examine the amount of time children report receiving from their parents, which may differ from the amount of time parents report spending with their children and the amount of time children report receiving from their parents. These two measures of time may differ for several reasons, most notably family composition. That is, both mothers and resident fathers may have increased the amount of time they spend with their children, but if fewer children have resident fathers, total parental time per child may be falling nonetheless.[xiii] These two measures of time may also differ due to the number of children in the household, and the extent to which the mother’s time spent on children overlaps with the father’s time spent on children. In fact, one of the few studies that looked at total parental time received per child found that average hours remained virtually unchanged from 1981 to 1997, roughly the same time period during which the number of hours spent by parents with their children as reported by Bianchi and her colleagues showed the biggest increase.[xiv]

Further obscuring our understanding of just how much time parents and children spend together is the fact that studies typically examine time spent in child-focused activities; we know much less about changes in the amount of time parents and children spend together in general, or its relative importance.

Finally, we must consider that societal notions of how much parental time with children is adequate are not static. Increased concerns over child safety and higher expectations regarding child socialization and development have placed greater demands on parental time in terms of supervised play, transporting children to and from and attending sporting and school events, participation in school fund raisers, and other such activities. Thus, even if parent-child time together has increased over time, this tells us relatively little about whether that amount of time is adequate. In fact, 70 percent of working parents say that they do not spend enough time with their children.[xv] Likely contributing to this feeling is the fact that working mothers spend significantly less time with their children than their nonworking counterparts—a total of 22 hours a week less, including five hours a week less in primary child-care activities.[xvi]

Although assessing the adequacy of parental time with children is difficult, at the very least, it appears that parents have avoided making drastic cuts in the time they spend with their children, but at a price. Parents end up sacrificing time for themselves, for each other, and for household functions. On average, employed mothers spend 14 hours less per week on themselves (including time for sleep) and eight hours less per week with their spouse as compared with their stay at home counterparts.[xvii] One study found that both mothers and fathers spent roughly 40 percent less time on personal activities during their waking hours in 2002 than in 1977.[xviii]

Another way in which parents cope with increasing time demands is to cut back on household chores. While time spent on household tasks has shifted somewhat from mothers to fathers, total parental time spent on household chores has fallen by roughly 8 hours a week, or 20 percent.[xix] Many families make up for this by hiring cleaning services, sending out laundry, and buying prepared meals. The reliance on such services is not necessarily negative, but is a concern to the extent that it leads to a less healthy lifestyle. Moreover, many lower-income families are cannot afford such services.

Parents also increasingly divide their attention between multiple tasks at any given moment. According to one study, by the year 2000 the amount of time parents spent multitasking when they were with their children was 74 percent for mothers and 77 percent for fathers, up from 53 percent and 64 percent, respectively, in 1975.[xx] These distractions and competing interests do not go unnoticed by children. According to a landmark survey of children conducted by the Families and Work Institute, only 62 percent of children say their mothers can readily focus on them when they are together, and 52 percent say the same of their fathers. Roughly 45 percent say that the time they have with their mother is rushed or distracted, and 37 percent say this of their father. Unsurprisingly, the number one wish of these children was not for more time with their parents, but for their parents to be less stressed and tired during the time they were with them.[xxi]

Reports abound in the popular press about the increasing pressure on working parents. On balance, research findings agree that work-family conflict is a significant and growing problem, although results vary widely as to its magnitude. Opinion polls tend to indicate the highest levels of work-family conflict, suggesting that it affects at least two-thirds of the population. More rigorous studies estimate that it is a problem for at least a third of the population. We hope that the committee takes this into account as it develops its priorities to help American workers.