front cover of Getting Paid While Taking Time
Getting Paid While Taking Time
The Women's Movement and the Development of Paid Family Leave Policies in the United States
Megan Sholar
Temple University Press, 2016

The United States remains the only industrialized nation in the world that does not provide paid family leave at the national level for either men or women. In the more than two decades since the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to expand family leave benefits nationally. However, in the United States, it is common for innovations in family policies to arise at the state level.

In her timely book, Getting Paid While Taking Time, Megan Sholar explains the development of family leave policies at both the national and state levels in the United States. She provides cogent studies of states that have passed and proposed family leave legislation, and she pays special attention to the ways in which women’s movement actors and other activists (e.g., labor unions) exert pressure on public officials to help influence the policymaking process. In her conclusion, Sholar considers the future of paid family leave policies in the United States and the chances for it ever equaling the benefits in other countries. 

[more]

front cover of The Moderation Dilemma
The Moderation Dilemma
Legislative Coalitions and the Politics of Family and Medical Leave
Anya Bernstein
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001
The effort to legislate family and medical leave policies in the United States illustrates a dilemma at the heart of the American political process. Faced with strong opposition from business lobbies, proponents of leaves in the late 1980s and early 1990s had to balance their desire to pass the policy they wanted against the desire to pass a policy at all.

In this lucid and timely book, Anya Bernstein analyzes how this "moderation dilemma" played out at the federal level and in four states. In so doing, she develops a new model of policy innovation based on the debate between the ideologically committed who want all or nothing (and often get nothing) and compromisers who will settle for less (and often get a lot less). Hers is a unique perspective on one of the few major policy innovations of the 1990s, and on the contentious issue of the role of the state in American family life.

Based on interviews with activists, legislators, staff members, and observers, The Moderation Dilemma uncovers the process by which advocates for family and medical leave determined what they would propose, chose their strategies, lobbied, and bargained. Bernstein found that groups were successful when they had access to
substantial resources, were willing to frame their proposals in culturally appropriate ways, and “fit” their strategies to the political context. In the case of family and medical leave, this meant co-opting the tactics of the new right and framing family leave as family values, as well as making significant compromises. But not all groups were willing to make these compromises. The fact that the laws mandating family and medical leaves cover barely half the population, and are unpaid, raises questions about the costs and benefits of moderation.

Bernstein also takes a fresh look at women’s movement groups in the 1990s. She compares those who have learned to work within the political system (insiders) with those that still focus on challenging it (outsiders). The women’s groups that led the fight to pass family and medical leave had to rethink their goals as supporters both of equality for women and of accommodation for women’s role as mothers. The Moderation Dilemma examines that transition and its debates, as well as the implications for the women’s movement as a whole.

Students and professionals in political science, sociology, and organizational theory will want to read The Moderation Dilemma, as will anyone concerned with the behavior of interest groups and social movements.
[more]

logo for Temple University Press
Taking Time
Mindy Fried
Temple University Press, 1998
There is a growing movement among corporations to provide family benefits in order to attract and retain women workers. They recognize that these benefits have become a cost of doing business. Many of these benefits, like child care and older care, are aimed at supporting employees' ability to stay on the job. Parental leave policies are an exception, because they involve taking time away from the job.

This timely book provides an inside look at life in a major U.S. corporation, focusing on the impact of workplace culture on the use of parental leave and those who use it. Fried begins by describing why parental leave is critical to making parenting the job of both parents in two-parent families. She examines the varied experiences of different levels of workers in how parental leave policy is used.

The author tells a rich and textured tale of day-to-day life in the skyscraper offices of a large corporation. How people dress, what their offices look like, which cafeteria they eat in, how the supervisors and supervised talk -- all these things are part of the fabric of corporate culture that Fried describes.

Most of us live in work cultures that value overtime. Fried argues that, as a "time policy" parental leave clashes with the powerful norm that corporate employees must work long and hard. Taking time for parenting -- a job that is devalued in our culture -- may be perceived as "taking time away" from the company, and, in particular, from the company's productivity.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter