A rchive Date
[ 11-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[This nation simply has to do better by its parents
By SYLVIA ANN HEWLETT
May 17, 2000, 4:32PM
Progress for working parents, it seems, can only come drip by drop. The latest in incremental improvements came earlier this month, when President Clinton signed an executive order banning discrimination against parents in the federal workplace; it is now illegal to deny jobs or promotions to people because they have obligations to children at home.
Bruce Reed, the president's chief domestic policy adviser, said the White House wanted to "send a clear signal to employers that there is nothing wrong with being a parent."
Nothing wrong with being a parent! The statement is a powerful reminder of how far this country has to go in understanding the value of parents. And it ignores how much parents, particularly mothers, sacrifice to raise children.
In the United States, a two-parent household earning $36,800 to $61,900 a year will spend $160,140 to feed, clothe and shelter a child until age 18, according to the latest government figures. This figure doesn't even include college tuition.
Of course, parents won't be surprised by these numbers, but there is another hidden cost: reduced earnings, especially for mothers.
The government and employers do such a poor job of supporting working mothers - providing little in the way of paid leave, flextime or affordable child care - that women routinely become downwardly mobile in the labor market once they have children.
A Rand Corp. study shows that a first child lowers a woman's lifetime earnings by 13 percent, while a second child lowers earnings by 19 percent. The high price of motherhood shows up clearly in recent analyses of the wage gap.
A substantial gap between men's and women's earnings has been a stubborn feature of the American labor market. In 1998, the gap between the earnings of men and women who worked full time stood at 27 percent, according to the latest census figures.
It now seems that this gap has little to do with gender and everything to do with children.
In a recent study, Jane Waldfogel, an economist at Columbia University, showed how child-bearing exerts enormous downward pressure on women's wages. Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys, she compared the earning power of mothers and non-mothers across occupations - controlling for age, education and experience - and found that childless women now earn 90 percent of what their male counterparts earn, while mothers earn only 73 percent.
The costs of child rearing are overwhelmingly private, while the returns are overwhelmingly social. Not only are three-bedroom homes and college tuitions extremely expensive these days, but today's parents are also expected to pay for day care, preschool, braces, therapy, summer camp, computer equipment and so on.
Who benefits from these expensively raised children, who will grow up to pay their taxes and Social Security and otherwise contribute to society? Well, parents gets hugs and kisses and other intangible rewards, but the big payoff goes to the nation.
These facts of life should create a much more generous attitude toward mothers and fathers - but unfortunately, they rarely do.
President Clinton deserves praise for his new initiative. But it is very narrow, applying only to federal employees. Legislation protecting parents from discrimination by private employers is stalled in Congress because of opposition from business groups.
Employers and legislators need to absorb one simple fact: We are all stakeholders in the well-being of American parents.
 World Fact Book (CIA))]
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