Together, we can ensure that the conditions of work promote the

health and well-being of workers and communities.

December 2022 Newsletter

Even as U-POWER prepares for the winter holiday season, we’ve been thinking about what’s to come in the new year. We’ve established our 2023 Seminar Series schedule (see below) and are developing some exciting programming plans, including our Spring Community Conference and our forthcoming Certificate in Total Worker Health®. We’re looking forward to reviewing applications for our community-initiated mini grants and our Research Pilot Project Program—don’t forget to check out the details on our website!

Another new initiative that U-POWER hopes to begin in the new year is facilitating working groups for scholars, researchers, and community members who would like to discuss their work equity-related projects. We invite any interested individuals to contact us to discuss their concepts and how they might benefit from participating in a working group of like-minded researchers and stakeholders. 

Harry Chapin’s 1974 song “Cat’s in the Cradle” expresses many of the tensions and difficulties that Americans face today due to the competing demands of work and family. In the first verse, the father has “planes to catch and bills to pay” that lead him to miss his child’s first steps. Towards the end of the song, the generational cycle of prioritizing work over family continues as the now-grown son explains his “new job’s a hassle,” but he’ll try to find some time for his father.

This song isn’t just a warning or a meditation on a singular relationship, even though Chapin himself once explained how “the song scares me to death” when reflecting on his relationship with his own son. American cultural values praise workers who dedicate long hours to their jobs even to the detriment of their wellbeing. And in spite of the many articles online that encourage workers to “take five,” “be mindful,” and “unplug at home,” work-life balance remains elusive for many. Economic pressures, especially in light of rising inflation, mean that workers must first prioritize wages and job stability over personal fulfillment.   

Nor is it only the harried father missing his son’s baseball game who experiences work-family conflict: it’s a single mother working multiple jobs, a dual-career couple working overtime to balance their responsibilities, or one of the 44 million people who are family caregivers “providing about $37 billion hours of unpaid care and assistance to family, friends, and neighbors.” This month’s Deep Dive will focus on what we mean when we say work-family balance, what challenges American workers in their attempts to achieve it, and potential solutions that employers and governments can explore to better resolve these tensions. 

What is Work-Family Balance?



Work and family have always presented a delicate balancing act, especially for the women who have typically served as primary caregivers. In early human history, women embraced certain types of work such as textile production and agriculture because it allowed them to evenly divide their attention between care of their families and the labor necessary to keep them alive. As industrial and other professional work became more economically necessary for all genders, families struggled to balance paid labor and unpaid responsibilities. Disparities deepened between populations, since women of color, particularly Black women, were much more likely to have to work outside the home to financially support their household. And as technology automated many of the formerly time-consuming tasks of domestic life, more and more women of all races and ethnicities moved into the workforce. Today, women constitute nearly half of the total U.S. workforce.

However, much of American work continued to be structured on the premise that a family consisted of one adult (typically a husband) who served as the family’s breadwinner and another (typically a wife) who was available to shoulder the domestic burdens of household management and dependent care. The term “work-family balance” finally came into use in the 1970’s and 1980’s in recognition of the fact that this “typical” family structure was anything but for many Americans.

But what is work-family balance? Occupational health scholarship acknowledges that it’s a complex phenomenon that means different things to different people. For some, work-family balance means simply arriving home at 5 p.m. for dinner, while others think of the ability to “flex” the demands of work around the needs of their family. One seminal article acknowledged this ambiguity by defining work-family balance as “the extent to which an individual is equally engaged in—and equally satisfied with—his or her work role and family role.” This satisfaction was imagined in three components, or the extent to which time, involvement, and satisfaction were equally balanced (see figure below). 

Why Aim for Family-Friendly Work?



Family-friendly work—work that “makes it possible for employees to more easily balance family and work, and to fulfill both their family and work obligations” offers benefits to employers as well as employees and their families. Dr. Leslie Hammer, Director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center noted in a Total Worker Health® in Action newsletter that as stressors from work-family conflict decrease, workers are not only more likely to comply with safety measures (e.g. using safety equipment like respirators and harnesses) at work, but they are also less likely to be injured. Employers whose policies and workplaces discourage work-family balance might also see lower engagement from their employees. Workers who are overcommitted to their jobs have been found to have to heightened levels of stress, which in turn has been linked to lower productivity. Ironically, living to work may actually make an individual a less productive worker. 

What's Happening in America Today?



Work-family conflict entered mainstream discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers found themselves either working remotely with limited social support or facing frontline work with increased risks of infection. These situations were exacerbated by increasing childcare and home-care shortages that, while already present, forced workers out of the labor force to care for their families. However, the pandemic did not create these tensions between work and family. Shifts in technology had led to a 24-7 mentality among many employers, with workers checking in on weekends and exchanging work-related texts after dinner. Decreased traditional support (i.e. one adult at home, the other at work) for all family forms also led to new stressors, particularly for the many workers who found themselves “sandwiched” between childcare and eldercare demands. At least one-third of American workers reported that they were asked to choose between progressing their careers and supporting their families, and a similar proportion of workers found themselves caring for at least one parent. 

These tensions have manifested in different stressors for different demographics. Women in dual-career marriages, for example, report higher levels of work-family conflict than do men, perhaps because women are more likely to retain the majority of domestic responsibilities. However, these expectations hurt men as well: many are torn between the desire to share household tasks and cultural expectations to devote themselves uncomplainingly to their work. The National Study of the Changing Workforce found that between 1977 and 2008, the percentage of fathers who reported work-life conflict rose from 35 percent to 60 percent. Childcare assistance, including on-site care, can offer some relief these parents, but assistance programs remain highly limited (an estimated 7% of workplaces offer childcare). Further, focusing efforts on children alone ignores the “working caregivers across the spectrum,” according to Thomas Perez, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, including “spouses caring for ill partners [and] children supporting their own parents as they age.” Families with unconventional structures (e.g. same-sex couples, foster parents, and multiple cohabitating adults in one household) are similarly excluded from heteronormative parent-centric initiatives. 

“There’s a basic inconsistency in saying we support families, we have family-friendly policies, when in fact we have the worst family policies of any developed high-income democracy. We don’t have family-friendly policies at all.”

Dorothy Roberts, a professor of law and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania

What Can We Do to Make Workplaces Family-Friendly?

The answer to this question is not only simple but also supported by a multitude of research and proof-of-concept from other countries whose incomes and societies are similar to the United States. Paid leave, flexible work hours, increased wages, remote and hybrid working options, and financial assistance with childcare. In short, time and money. But whose responsibility is to provide this for families of all kinds, and how might these policies be implemented across diverse industries and workplaces?

Following COVID-19, many employers found that some of these policies, especially flexible and remote/hybrid work options were well within the range of possibilities. One study of family-friendly workplaces in Utah found that not only did companies continue to function, but “92% of the best places of employment offer remote work or flexibility with work location, and 75% offered maternity leave.” Flexibility with work location and hours is especially valuable to Utah parents, the majority of whom reported that they would be more likely to work more than they currently do if their employer offered those benefits (see figure from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute above). While not all workplaces are capable of “flex” policies, it seems an easy solution to encourage those that can to implement them immediately. However, many employers continue to resist the implementation of hybrid or remote work models.

While employer mandates to provide these family-friendly policies might seem a natural extension of U.S. politics, studies show that the groups most likely to use those policies are also most likely to see wage decreases due to pass-through costs. Further, policies that are not worker-centric or not grounded in data are less likely to be “underpinned by inclusivity and equity” and therefore fail to support the wide spectrum of families living in the United States today. This is especially the case when considering that 44% of American workers work in low-wage occupations such as retail, food service, cleaning, and motor vehicle operations. Not only do these jobs provide a wage that fails to support families, but they are much less likely to offer a family-supportive workplace environment.

If we turn to other countries, such as Sweden, Norway, and Germany, we can see how they have begun to answer this question. Paid leave is provided for mothers and fathers both, access to affordable childcare is universal, and workplaces must institute family-friendly policies like breastfeeding breaks. Recent political initiatives mirroring these countries have been proposed by U.S. politicians, including calls for paid family and medical leave and widespread subsidization and regulation of childcare. However, as demonstrated by the government’s action on the railroad workers’ call for sick leave, there is still a great deal of work to be done. For families to be supported, that change must improve the quality of all work in the United States. 

January U-POWER Seminar Series: Work as a Social Determinant of Health

What makes one person healthy and another unhealthy? One answer rests in the social determinants of health, which “are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks” (Healthy People 2030). While work intersects with each of the five domains, it also serves as its own determinant of health. Work influences health through the conditions of employment (full-time, part-time, precarious, multiple jobs) as well as working conditions such as physical, biological, and psychosocial hazards. Work is also a major factor in shaping where a person fits within a society in terms of status and connectedness.

However, work as a measure of health and inequality still primarily remains in the domain of occupational health rather than the broader domain of public health. Join U-POWER as we explore how work functions as a determinant of health, why researchers and health practitioners should include work in their projects, and how they might do so.

This event will be held on January 19, 2023 at 4:00 pm (MST).

Join us at:

https://utah.zoom.us/j/94437641630

Passcode: 2722624

January U-POWER Seminar Series: Mini Grant Q&A

Join U-POWER in 2023 for a Town Hall Q&A focused on our mini grant program! Our mini grant program provides between $500 - $2,500 of funding to support community-initiated projects dedicated to work health and equity as well as building capacity for our community of practice. Awards may also take the form of technical assistance (e.g. grant writing help, U-POWER consultants, literature reviews, preparation of materials). This Town Hall is intended to provide information on individual grant ideas, help with writing the application, and finding partners for a mini grant.

This event will be held on January 17, 2023 at 11:00 am (MST).

Join us at:

https://utah.zoom.us/j/91605613857

Passcode: 186801

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We want to hear from you!

U-POWER’s community of practice includes community members, stakeholders, workers, and health professionals—and we want to hear from you! U-POWER is seeking community input on our 2023 priorities. If you have a suggestion for our Seminar Series, Deep Dive, materials you’d like to see U-POWER create, or anything else, drop us a note in our Google form! Requests are anonymous by default, but please feel free to leave your name and contact information if you’d like us to follow up with you directly.

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Total Worker Health® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Participation by the Utah Center for Promotion of Work Equity Research (U-POWER) does not imply endorsement by HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.