Welfare To Work Programs Imperfect
Reader: I am a fairly well educated, employed woman, age 45, with two children under the age of 14. And, but for chance and good luck, I might have been one of the victims of this “welfare to work” lunacy you have written about. The Henry Higgins-like rantings of our current group of lawmakers evoke their view of an “ideal” society which doesn’t include members of a gender other than their own. “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”
Women have proved themselves ingenious in finding ways to provide for their families, including working multiple jobs and nonstandard hours. In the past, they could also rely on a social safety net of taxpayer-funded support. Now the safety net has been dismantled - with no good replacement offered.
Welfare to work sounds great - if children aren’t negatively affected by it.
Comment: Your analysis of what is happening is accurate - and frightening. You will understand why I call the new laws welfare “repeal,” rather than “reform.”
Reader: I’m a systems consultant who recently applied to graduate school for a master’s degree in public policy. I read your column about the challenges facing our communities as a result of welfare reform and want to become involved. I agree with Anne Ladky (executive director of Women Employed) who says that both government and nongovernment agencies need to work together to support the changes.
I want to help out. What is the phone number of Women Employed?
Comment: Women Employed is an excellent organization to work with on this enormous problem. You can reach Ladky at (312) 782-3902.
Reader: Welfare to work is especially trying for women with children. Often, child care costs more than what they would make by going to work - if they could find available child care. So what should former welfare moms do with their children while working nontraditional hours?
I suggest training some of the women to be child-care providers. It will give them a job and, for other women, peace of mind knowing they have adequate child care while they work.
Comment: You have a good idea and there are some pilot child-care training programs for welfare mothers offered by public and private agencies. Though it does sound as if it’s a logical fit, the problem is that not everyone - very few people, in fact - is interested in or even temperamentally suited to care for other people’s children, even if they are trained.
Reader: Why can’t the notion of flexibility in the workplace be extended to working fathers? Right now, it’s assumed the mother is the only one who needs it - and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In some cases, the father may be more equipped to deal with the child or more expendable in the work he does than the mother. Such a level playing field would, I believe, lower the resistance that now exists for flexibility in balancing work and family responsibilities.
Comment: I agree. It’s essential that men share equally in family responsibilities - and the Family and Medical Leave Act reflects this because it’s gender-neutral. But when it comes to crunch time, studies show that 95 percent of employed married women have the majority of responsibilities for the home and family. That’s why it’s important to discuss how women handle these tasks and how it affects their careers. Hopefully, as more men share equally, the focus will change.
That may not happen for a long time, however, because some men who opt to take unpaid leave under the act to care for a new child or an ill family member tell me their careers suffer just by asking for it - let alone taking it.
Still, the stats show that women disproportionately are impacted in their career advancement by lack of flextime and child care.
xxxx Women and Work appears Tuesdays on the INLife People page.