Workplace Prof Blog

WFRN Preliminary Conference Program Available

Friend of the blog Marcy Karin (Arizona State) writes to let us know that the Work and Family Researchers Network or WFRN (formerly the Sloan Work and Family Research Network) has released the program for its inaugural conference. The WFRN

is an international membership organization of interdisciplinary work and family researchers. The WFRN also welcomes the participation of policy makers and practitioners as it seeks to promote knowledge and understanding of work and family issues among the community of global stakeholders.

The WFRN facilitates virtual and face-to-face interaction among work and family researchers from a broad range of fields and engages the next generation of work and family scholars. As a global hub, we provide opportunities for information sharing and networking via our website, which includes the only open access work and family subject matter repository, the Work and Family Commons. 

The inaugural conference is this June in New York City and features over 600 speakers from thirty countries. a quick glance at the program reveals that amont them are Joan Williams (UC Hastings), Nina Pilard (Georgetown), Beth Burkstrand-Reid (Nebraska), Michelle Travis (San Francisco), Robin Runge (North Dakota), Keith Cunningham-Parmeter (Willamette), Deborah Widiss (Indiana-Bloomington), Melissa Hart (Colorado), Ruth Milkman (CUNY, Sociology) and Marcy Karin (Arizona State).

It looks like a great conference and a great organization to become involved with for anyone working on these work and family issues.

MM 

The New Male Mystique: Counterpart to the Superwoman

I'm catching up on my reading this summer and ran across a multitude of things on work life balancing that I hadn't encountered before and which are worth sharing.

Earlier this month, the Families and Work Institute issued a new study on work-family conflict and men as part of the National Study of the Changing Workforce: The New Male Mystique. About two years ago, the national study revealed that a higher percentage of men ( 60% in dual earner households) than women (47% in dual earner households) were reporting work-family conflict. The current study seeks to answer why that is, and the authors concluded:

We suggest that the increase in work-family conflict experienced by men is a symptom of the new male mystique—today’s male version of the “feminine mystique” coined by Betty Friedan in 1963 to describe how assumptions about women finding fulfillment in traditional domestic roles created tension and conflict for a number of women, preventing them from finding their identities and opportunities for meaningful work. Applying Friedan’s reasoning to men, the “traditional male mystique” would reflect the notion that men should seek fulfillment at work and strive to be successful as financial providers for their families. We use the term new male mystique to describe how traditional views about men’s role as breadwinners in combination with emerging gender role values that encourage men to participate in family life and a workplace that does not fully support these new roles have created pressure for men to, essentially, do it all in order to have it all.

The study released a number of findings. Here are a few:

• Work-family conflict is not simply a function of hours spent working. Job characteristics and psychological factors—including attitudes about work, family and appropriate gender roles—all contribute to men’s work-family conflict.
• Work-centric men are more likely to experience work-family conflict than dual- or family-centric men.
• Men who hold traditional gender role values—i.e., strongly agree the man should earn the money and the woman should take care of the home and children— are also more likely to experience work-family conflict.

The recommendations included more flexible work arrangements for men and more cultural support for men to take advantage of those.

Some of these findings suggest a reason for the conflict beyond the lack of flexibility and supportive bosses that we expect. I would suggest, in fact, that analogizing to the Feminine Mystique is completely backward. Betty Friedan's book was about how many women were not fulfilled by the domestic role they were supposed to glory in. Here, the converse is true. The men feeling the greatest amount of conflict don't seem to be rejecting the breadwinning role that they are supposed to relish--they instead feel the conflict when home encroaches.

In other words, the findings suggest that more men than women are reporting feeling the conflict. To the extent that some significant number of men don't expect to feel any conflict because they see themselves as primarily breadwinners, those men are going to experience the competing demands as conflict rather than as the balance they expected to strike. It seems from the findings that men who expect to prioritize their families as much as or more than work don't report the conflict as much. And perhaps enough women have just been struggling with that expectation issue for so long that they tend to expect the competing demands and so may not experience it as conflict to the same extent.

Maybe it would be a good time to revisit a radical experiment in work-life balance conducted forty years ago by the Norwegian government where couples split a single job. It's reported on in this Time story from last October and sounds really interesting. Most of the couples continued the arrangement after the study and remembered the time as strengthening their family even though they were not particularly well off economically.

Our current economic situation might help reset expectations, although so far it seems to be mostly heightening financial stress on people. On that economic front, legislation has been introduced that while not focused on partners within a family would promote state worksharing programs. The Layoff Prevention Act of 2011, focused on keeping people in jobs with reduced hours, was introduced earlier this month as H.R. 2421. The legislation would provide workers whose hours are reduced with unemployment insurance benefits to account for the reduced hours.

MM

Ruth on the Future of Telecommuting

Stephen Ruth (GMU - Public Policy) has just posted on SSRN his chapter (the future book is not indicated) The Dark Side of Telecommuting - Is a Tipping Point Approaching?.  Here's the abstract:

This chapter proposes a cautionary view of the potential challenges that would arise if telecommuting implementation increases significantly beyond its present, popular, highly successful baseline. Current telecommuters are the cream of the crop—mature, carefully trained, and mostly from significantly higher-than-average income and education levels. But as more persons are added in telecommuting plans, there may be serious problems. Several of the challenges associated with greater telecommuting participation are described: difficulties in assessing current telecommuting demographics, problems in the evaluation of productivity, the dilemma of determining verifiable costs and benefits, the drawbacks and distractions in home-siting of telework as the levels of education and experience decrease, the imbalance of broadband service, especially for the poor, and the reluctance of some organizations to take advantage regional telecenters.

This is an interesting read.  Despite the title, it's not a horror story -- it's a thoughtful explanation of how telecommuting may change many aspects of worklife in the future, and on some of the practical limits of telecommuting.  For example:

First, there would be dislocation. An employer would not be very wise to preserve a good permanent office for an employee who is using it only sporadically. So hoteling, which has been around for decades, will begin to be used by average companies and agencies, not just the Fortune 100.... Also, unions and other employee rights organizations will begin to become involved in telecommuting decisions Second, there may be some productivity anomalies. If a person is significantly more successful on a work unit basis while telecommuting, what behaviors can be expected when she or he is back at the office?... Third, there may be a need for an intermediate location for telecommuting due to security problems. No matter how skillful the organization’s tech staff may be, it will more difficult to replicate the secure, sabotage-proof hardware software/software suite available at the primary location in the home computer or the nomadic device. Many of those who have been working at home will need to migrate to the robust, comfortable confines of a telecenter, where it’s easier to replicate the full security protocols that are needed.

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Connecticut Two-Fer

At the beginning of this month, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy signed into law two important new employment laws. First, he signed Public Act 11-52, An Act Mandating Employers Provide Paid Sick Leave to Employees, the first of its kind to be passed by a state. This statute mandates that employers who have fifty or more employees who do not already provide at least five days a year of paid leave to provide up to five days a year of paid sick time. Clearly not every employer is covered, and in addition, not every type of employee is covered even for covered employers, Moreover, employees are not eligible until they have worked 680 hours. Still, Connecticut is the first state to mandate paid sick time in any form, and this is a very important development. 

Secondly, Connecticut became the fourteenth state (plus DC for a total of fifteen state and state-like jurisdictions) to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression. Public Act 11-55, An Act Concerning Discrimination is the statute. Connecticut prohibits discrimination in a variety of contexts outside of employment as well, from housing to provision of utilities, and it added gender identity or expression to most if not all of these. Connecticut also prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but that status is not as broadly protected as the new addition.

MM

AALS Section on Women in Legal Education Mentoring Program

Sandra Sperino (Cincinnati) writes to tell us of a mentoring program organized and administered by Colleen Medill (Nebraska) for the Section on Women in Legal Education of the American Association of Law Schools. Here is the announcement:

Opportunities for finding a mentor

At different stages of their careers, individuals may need different types of mentoring. Mentoring needs could be in teaching, in scholarship development, or with work-life issues and experiences. Therefore, a "onesize fits all needs for all times" approach to mentoring has proven difficult to implement in the past.

The Section on Women in Legal Education's Mentoring Program takes a different approach to traditional mentoring. The Section's program is structured as an "a la carte" program. The volunteer mentors and their expertise and experiences are listed on the Mentoring Program website. Individuals who desire mentoring are encouraged to contact directly any volunteer mentor on the list who matches the individual’s particular mentoring need(s). Mentors are available to give assistance and advice concerning teaching, scholarship and work-life issues. The URL for the site is: http://law.unl.edu/wile.

Professor Colleen Medill at the University of Nebraska administers theweb site and serves as the chair of the Mentoring Program. Her e-mail is cmedill2@unl.edu. You may contact Colleen if you want assistance infinding a "match" for the type of mentoring you are seeking.

The Mentoring Program Committee currently is working to develop the web site, publicize it, and expand the list of mentors. The members of the Mentoring Program Committee are: Colleen E. Medill, Chair (Nebraska); Marina Angel (Temple); Michelle Simon (Pace); Jennifer Hendricks(Tennessee); Sandra Sperino (Cincinnati); Melissa Marlow (Southern Illinois); Nicole Huberfeld (Kentucky); Kerri Stone (Florida International);and Ruth Jones (Pacific).

The Section's Mentoring Program and the web site are a work in progress. If you have suggestions for the web site and improving the quality of the program, please contact any member of the Mentoring Program Committee.

Mentoring Opportunity

The Section also is looking for individuals who want to be mentors. If you would like to be a mentor, please contact Colleen Medill for a Volunteer Mentor Application Form. Colleen can be reached at cmedill2@unl.edu.

This is a wonderful approach to mentoring and a great service to our community. And it's nice to see so many workplace profs helping to make it a reality.

MM 

Schwartz Temple & Beaupre Gillespie on Balancing

Congratulations to Hollee Schwartz Temple (West Virginia) and Becky Beaupre Gillespie, a journalist, both of whom are work/life balance columnists for the ABA Journal on the publication of their new book, Good Enough Is the New Perfect.

Here's an excerpt from the book, available on the Amazon page that describes the project well:

Good Enough Is the New Perfect is based on journalistic research we conducted over two years, beginning in 2008. It draws on exclusive data—our survey of 905 working mothers born between 1965 and 1980 and representing almost every state in the nation—as well as in-depth interviews with more than 100 working mothers. Some of these women were subjects of multiple interviews conducted regularly over one or two years; their generous gifts of time gave us deep insight into the wide range of factors that shape women's choices today. We also have drawn from expert research into issues ranging from marriage to feminism to business; some of the experts we consulted shared hours of time to help us better understand our findings.

Our key findings, by the way, surprised us. Our research revealed two types of working mothers: the Never Enoughs, who felt a constant need to be "the best," and the Good Enoughs, who said that being "the best" wasn't important, as long as they were good enough and happy at work and at home. What caught our attention wasn't that these two groups existed—it was how differently they fared in their attempts to balance work and family.

We want to be clear on one point right away. We intentionally chose to examine only a slice of the maternal population—mothers who had the privilege of education and a certain amount of choice regarding work, including the ability to temporarily scale back hours, switch jobs or take time off. Almost all the women we interviewed—though diverse in race, geography, profession and family background—were college-educated and relatively secure financially. (Which isn't to say that they didn't feel money pressures; many did. But most weren't worried about putting food on the table at night.) Almost all of our survey respondents had attended college, and nearly half worked in jobs that required an advanced degree. We're very much aware that other groups face work/life issues, and that many women do not have much (or any) choice with respect to their work—but that's not the focus of this book.

This is a great addition to the literature on balance, on women, family, and work, and on the growing body of happiness literature. My only small critique is that it seems so woman focused--and so one-partner focused (although I haven't had a chance to read it yet and am going from the web site and descriptions).

I admit that I'm biased on this issue because I currently have a male stay at home spouse, and we have traded off various home/kid duties over time. While there are many gender-specific issues for women in the work-life fit, I'd like to know about issues for men, straight or gay, and for lesbians; I'd like to know whether there are differences based on gender and sexual orientation; and I'd like to know about cooperative partner balancing, too.

Of course, we've all gotten that question in workshops about why we didn't study something else and hated it equally, so maybe that critique is not fair and it's for the next project for someone to take on. Regardless, this book is a fabulous contribution!

MM

Crowdsourcing the Work-Family Debate

Kurt Kruckeberg, EIC of Seattle U. L. Rev., sends us this note about his journal's recent colloquy:

The Seattle University Law Review recently published Crowdsourcing the Work-Family Debate: A Colloquy. The colloquy explores themes presented by Professor Joan C. Williams in her book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter. Contributors to the colloquy include Professors Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, Nancy Levit, Lisa Pruitt, and Katharine Silbaugh, among others. The colloquy also includes a response from Professor Williams and a retrospective reprint of a 1978 address delivered by then-Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her experiences with sex discrimination in the legal profession. In a preface to the reprinted edition, Justice Ginsburg states that she is heartened by the changes from 1978 to today, but that "[a]s Joan C. Williams develops in Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, there is a great distance yet to travel."

The full text of the colloquy issue is available here.

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New Report from Center for WorkLife Law: Poor, Pregnant, and Fired: Caregiver Discrimination Against Low-Wage Workers

Professor Joan Williams and Deputy Director Stephanie Bornstein at the Center for WorkLife Law at U.C. Hastings Law School write to tell us that they just released a report that should be of interest to many readers of this blog—an analysis of caregiver discrimination lawsuits brought by low-wage workers. 

Here is the full report, Poor, Pregnant, and Fired: Caregiver Discrimination Against Low-Wage Workers.

The press release for this report states in part:

A new report released by the Center for WorkLife Law details the extreme measures to which low-wage workers must go to keep a job and care for their children or elderly family members—and the sometimes shocking discrimination they face at work despite these efforts . . .

Even in family emergencies, the report shows, low-wage workers are refused the small kinds of workplace flexibility that are commonplace for middle-wage and professional workers.  Ironically, small changes by employers can make a significant difference in keeping experienced employees in their jobs.  They can also prevent costly liability: several lawsuits profiled resulted in large verdicts, including four with recoveries of between $2.3 and $11.65 million, despite the plaintiffs’ (a housekeeper, a shipping dispatcher, a bakery delivery driver, and a hospital maintenance worker) low wages.

Sounds like a very interesting study. Check it out.

PS

Using Social Media in Union Organizing

Mitch Rubinstein posts over at Adjunct Prof Blog about this Report (and Executive Summary) about how union organizers can use social media tools and work-family issues in organizing campaigns. The Report  includes highlights of interviews with 23 organizers, and also includes recommendations that may help unions strengthen their relationships with women and young workers. The Report is written by the Labor Project for Working Families, Cornell ILR Programs, and University of California Berkeley Labor Center.

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DOL Seeks Comments on Nursing Mothers Law

As we have noted before, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to require employers to provide space and time for nursing mothers to express milk. This summer, the DOL issued a fact sheet explaining the provision and interpreting it. And then on December 21, the DOL asked the public for comments on the interpretation in the fact sheet.

This is just a reminder that the deadline for comments is approaching: it's February 22, just over a month away. Here are the details from the news release:

WHD News Release: [12/21/2010]
Contact Name: Dolline Hatchett
Phone Number: (202) 693-4651
Release Number: 10-1764-NAT

US Labor Department seeks comments on nursing mothers law

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division is requesting public comments on its preliminary interpretations of a new provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act that requires employers to provide nursing mothers with reasonable break time and a private space for expressing breast milk while at work. This new provision — the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law — became law when the Affordable Care Act was signed by the president in March 2010. The provision responds to a reality that many women face when they return to work after having a baby.

"Many women who want to continue breastfeeding their children simply can't because they do not have the necessary accommodations to do it," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "What the department is seeking to do is to develop guidance for employers that will assist them in complying with this new law and that will support women who choose to continue nursing once they return to work. And with input from the public — including working mothers and employers — we'll be successful in doing that."

The department will accept public comments in response to a request for information on its preliminary interpretations for the next 60 days — with a deadline of Feb. 22, 2011 — via http://www.regulations.gov.

In order to increase awareness of the new law and provide the public with access to additional resources related to workplace lactation programs, the department has launched a Web page at http://www.dol.gov/whd/nursingmothers. Employers and employees are encouraged to visit the site. It provides general information and guidance that has been issued by the department on the new break time requirements for nursing mothers in the workplace, as well as a compilation of resources that employers, employees and other interested stakeholders might find useful as they develop workplace lactation programs. Many employers already have successfully implemented lactation programs using these and similar resources.

The Wage and Hour Division is responsible for administering and enforcing a number of federal labor laws, including the FLSA. The act's nursing mothers provision requires employers to provide reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child's birth each time such employee has need to express the milk. Employers also are required to provide a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.

For information on federal laws concerning wage and hour issues, visit http://www.dol.gov/whd or call the Wage and Hour Division's toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243).

In my view, the DOL's interpretation is quite reasonable, balancing the valid concerns of employers with the needs of women who are still breastfeeding (and their children). I encourage anyone with an interest to take a look and provide a comment.

I was lucky enough to live in a state that passed similar legislation at the time I was breastfeeding my children, and although there were some transition challenges, the time and space for breaks to express milk made a world of difference for me, for other women working for my employer, and for my employer, too. We didn't have to choose between work and feeding our kids breastmilk, and there was significantly less disruption for our employer, which did not have to cover our work (or temporarily replace us) while we took longer leave. And though my employer was concerned about the practical issues--the space, who could use it, how it could be accessed, how to cover the time of the break--those concerns turned out to be easily dealt with. It was really a win-win, or maybe a win-win-win, if you include the kids, too.

Hat tip: Deborah Widiss

MM

Panel on Paid Leave in California

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is hosting a panel on paid leave, entitled, Leaves That Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California, on Thursday, January 13 at 12:30 Eastern time at the Center for American Progress Action Fund in Washington D.C. From the announcement:

More families now have two parents that are full-time workers, making it increasingly important for them to have access to flexible workplace policies. In 2002, California became the first state to implement a paid family leave insurance program, providing workers with paid leave when they have a new child or need to care for a family member with a serious illness. This policy expanded California's temporary disability insurance program that already provided paid leave to seriously ill workers. Please join the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the Center for Economic and Policy Research for a panel that will showcase the first research on the implementation and effectiveness of California's legislation and discuss what impact it will have on national policymaking.

A light lunch will be served at 12:00 p.m. Please RSVP to attend this event.

Keynote speaker:
Congressman Pete Stark (CA-13)

Featured speakers:

    * Eileen Appelbaum, Senior Economist, Center for Economic and Policy Research
    * Netsy Firestein, Founder and Director, Labor Project for Working Families
    * Ruth Milkman, Professor, CUNY Graduate Center; Academic Director, CUNY's Murphy Labor Institute
    * Ann O'Leary, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund
    * Kaelan Richards, Press Secretary, Office of Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

Moderated by:
Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for American Progress Action Fund

If you are interested in this topic and would like to watch the panel or learn more about the research, the panel will be streamed live here. I'll likely be tuning in to learn more.

MM

First Annual American University Labor & Employment Law Forum Symposium: "The 'New' American Workday: How 9-5 has become 24/7"

Jennifer Brown, Editor-in-Chief of the Labor & Employment Law Forum at American University - Washington College of Law, sends us word about their First Annual American University Labor & Employment Law Forum Symposium: "The 'New' American Workday: How 9-5 has become 24/7."

The symposium will address the rampant expansion of the American workday. Presenters will discuss solutions currently available to regulate the length of the workday under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and through collective bargaining. Panels will include discussions on the non-traditional workday, unpaid interns, domestic workers, compensation for the use of mobile devices, and several industry-specific concerns.

The symposium will be held on April 18, 2011 from 9 am to 5 pm in Room 603 of the American University Washington College of Law, located at 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016.  There is no charge for registration, but registration is required. Online registration available at: https://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/cle_form.cfm. CLE credit is available for a fee of $95.00.

As part as this symposium, there is also a call for papers.  The Forum will publish articles presented or related to this symposium.  Articles may address one of the topics noted above. The Forum will consider traditional law review articles, as well as recent development pieces and shorter essays. The ideal length for submissions is 25 pages (double-spaced, including footnotes), although both shorter and longer submissions are welcome. Footnotes should be formatted according to the latest edition of The Bluebook.

Accepted articles will appear in Volume 1, Issue 3, with expected publication shortly after the symposium takes place. Submissions will be accepted for publication based on both the quality of the article and the Forum's publication restraints. The Forum ultimately reserves the right to make offers of publication to papers submitted. Please note that in order to meet publication deadlines, no articles submitted after February 1, 2011, will be considered for publication. Submissions will be accepted through ExpressO as well as e-mail.  All essays, articles, and questions regarding publication can be emailed to aulaborlawforum@gmail.com.

PS

Is Murder "Good Cause" for Discharge?

Roger Kearney murdered his married lover after she started pressuring him to leave his partner for her.  He was convicted and got 15 years.  Kearney's employer, the Royal Mail (he was a postal worker), fired him.  Now Kearney is bringing an Employment Tribunal claim for unfair dismissal.  A spokesperson for Royal Mail indicates that "Royal Mail will defend its position vigorously at this tribunal."

As PJH Law points out, even if murder does not constitute good cause, perhaps absenteeism is.

For the complete story (with photos), see BBC News.

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Workplace Flexibility and the Military

We blog here occasionally on military issues because the military is a workplace, after all, even if it is an unusual and unusually dangerous one. Despite that, I have to admit that I never expected to see a call for greater workplace flexibility in the military by the Department of Defense. From a press release earlier this week,

Recognizing and finding ways to accommodate the changing needs of servicemembers and their families with regard to the military workplace should be a priority for leaders, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said here yesterday. 

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen spoke as part of a panel on work and life balance at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Focus on Workplace Flexibility Conference.

The audience was composed of more than 100 government, military and business leaders.

“The ability to be the best we can be and carry out our missions is so central to our focus on our people, … but more than our people, our families,” Mullen said, “and while we’ve made significant strides, we still have a long way to go.”

Allowing flexible options that affect the number of hours worked and the places where employees work is one way leaders can help in providing balance between work and family life, the chairman said, citing flex time and compressed work weeks, part-time work, job sharing and teleworking as examples.

While the press release goes on to focus primarily on women servicemembers, the issue is also framed as important for military families. And current working conditions in the military highlight the importance of flexibility for men, too, Men have families, and there are human limits that long, repeated deployments, or long hours with no down time can sorely test. Recognizing those limits and the need for flexibility is good for the servicemembers, good for their families, good for performance, and good for overall military readiness.

MM

European MPs Vote to Extend Maternity Leave

Members of the European Parliament have approved, by a narrow margin, a proposal that would extend maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay and make that mandatory in the EU.  Minimum maternity leave in the EU is currently 14 weeks.  For more, see this article in BBC News Europe.

The illustration at left obviously applies to the American -- not the European -- policy on maternity leave.

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Working Mother's 100 Best Companies 2010

Working Mother magazine has issued its annual list of the 100 best companies to work for. This marks the list's twenty-fifth anniversary. The list is compiled based on things like the workplace profile, benefits, women’s issues and advancement, child care, flexible work, paid time off and leaves, company culture, and work-life programs. The website also has a feature on companies that are best for women of color. While four law firms made the list, only one university did. And while most of the evaluations seem tilted towards the upper levels of the pay scale, some of the companies also seem to be good places for women in low wage work.

MM

Measuring Success

A new study released earlier this year by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers (both from the Wharton School and both affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and other thinktanks), which is currently under review for publication provides an interesting picture of racial and gender progress since the 1970s. The study, Subjective and Objective Indicators of Racial Progress, notes that very little progress has been made to close the racial gap in wealth and income in the last thirty-five years, but significant progress has been made in closing the gap in happiness in that time period.

From the study,

Our contribution in this paper is to carefully document trends over several decades in subjective well-being by race in the United States, collecting evidence across a wide array of datasets covering various demographic groups, time periods, and measures of subjective well-being. To preview our findings, section II shows that blacks in the United States were much less happy in the 1970s than would be predicted by objective differences in life circumstances. We next show that over recent decades, blacks have become happier, both absolutely and relative to whites. Blacks continue to report lower levels of happiness compared to whites, but the gap has been systematically closing. In section III we show that this fact is robust to accounting for trends in incarceration (potentially missing data) and to exploring other data sets and measures of subjective well-being. In section IV, we consider who has received the greatest gains in happiness among blacks and how that has contributed to the closing of the racial gap. In this section we also explore the relationship between income and happiness by race and we take a look at other measures of well-being.

It is possible, as this NY Times article suggests, that the aggregate increase in happiness is attributable in part to the decline in overt racism people may encounter in their day-to-day lives. In fact, the study's abstract states that gains in happiness are concentrated in women and both sexes living in the South, groups that have likely seen the most change in attitudes in their own communities.

There's still plenty of room for improvement, though, as the continued existence of a significant gap in subjective feelings of well being and the continued existence of the persistent and significant gap in objective measures of well being demonstrate. And although subjective feelings of well being are certainly an important improvement, until there is objective equality, we will not have reached a state where race no longer matters.

MM

Recently Published Scholarship: 4-Day Work Week

Redefining Work:  Implications of the Four-Day Work Week

Connecticut Law Review
Volume 42, Number 4 (2010)

The Four-Day Work Week:  Views from the Ground

• Rex L. Facer II & Lori L. Wadsworth, Four-Day Work Weeks:  Current Research and Practice, p. 1031.
• Riva Poor, How and Why Flexible Work Weeks Came About, p. 1047.
• Robert C. Bird, The Four-Day Work Week:  Old Lessons, New Questions, p. 1059.

Rational Choice, Flexibility, and Accommodation in the Work Place

• Rachel Arnow-Richman, Incenting Flexibility:  The Relationship Between Public Law and Voluntary Action in Enhancing Work/Life Balance, p. 1081. 

Reduced/Compressed Work Weeks:  Who Wins?  Who Loses?

• Shirley Lung, The Four-Day Work Week:  But What About Ms. Coke, Ms. Upton, and Ms. Blankenship? p. 1119.
• Michael Z. Green, Unpaid Furloughs and Four-Day Work Weeks:  Employer Sympathy or Call for Collective Employee Action? p. 1139.
• Lonnie Golden, A Purpose for Every Time?  The Timing and Length of the Work Week and the Implications for Worker Well-Being, p. 1181

Redefining Work:  Possibilities and Perils

• Vicki Schultz, Feminism and Workplace Flexibility, p. 1203.
• Michelle A. Travis, What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It?  Work/Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week, p. 1223.
• Katharine B. Silbaugh, Sprawl, Family Rhythms, and the Four-Day Work Week, p. 1267

Essay

• Emily Grabham, Dilemmas of Value in Post-Industrial Economies:  Retrieving Clock Time Through the Four-Day Work Week? p. 1285.

Individual articles from the symposium may be downloaded here (thanks, Hank, for the link!).

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DOL Interpretation Letter Expands FMLA Rights to Non-Traditional Families

In another move to provide protections to LGBT employees, the Obama Labor Department has clarified the definition of “son or daughter” under Section 101(12) of the Family and Medical Leave Act to give family leave rights to people who assume the role of caring for a child regardless of the legal or biological relationship, according to an interpretation letter (No. 2010-3)  issued by the Wage and Hour Division June 22.

In that letter, Wage and Hour Division Deputy Administrator Nancy J. Leppink wrote: “Either day-to-day care or financial support may establish an in loco parentis relationship where the employee intends to assume the responsibilities of a parent with regard to a child . . . . In all cases, whether an employee stands in loco parentis to a child will depend on the particular facts.”

Significantly, the letter states that, “[n]either the statute nor the regulations restrict the number of parents a child may have under the FMLA . . . .A simple statement asserting that the requisite family relationship exists is all that is needed."

And even more specifically with regard to same sex relationships, the interpretation letter states: "[A]n employee who will share equally in the raising of an adopted child with a same sex partner, but who does not have a legal relationship with the child, would be entitled to leave to bond with the child following placement, or to care for the child if the child had a serious health condition, because the employee stands in loco parentis to the child."

Needless to say, these employee protections have been long sought by the LGBT community and the letter is another example of the Obama administration following through on its LGBT agenda.

PS

FMLA to Cover Leave for Gay Partners of Federal Employees

Update: This piece from the AP suggests that Obama's actions will go beyond federal employees: "His administration planned to announce Wednesday [tomorrow] that the Labor Department would order businesses to extend unpaid leave for gay workers to care for newborns or loved ones."  stay tuned for Wednesday's announcement. PS

Michael Shear writes for today's Washington Post that:

On Wednesday, the Labor Department is expected to announce that federal officials have rethought the Family and Medical Leave Act, concluding that under the law, a gay federal employee may take leave to care for a child with a gay partner. 

This news is part of a story about how the Obama Amdinistration is using executive orders and administrative reinterpretations to expand federal rights and benefits for gays and lesbians.

Hat tip: Above the Law.

rb