The Role of Employers in Addressing the Needs of Employed Parents

This paper examines life on and off the job for a nationally representative sample of 2958 wage and salaried workers, comparing the situations of parent and nonparent employees within the sample. Although parent and nonparent employees were found to be quite similar in most respects, some notable differences were revealed—in the value they place on different benefits and workplace policies; in the extent of the sacrifices they have made in their family/personal lives for the sake of their jobs or careers, and vice versa; and in the time they have available off the job for themselves and with their spouses after completing household chores and fulfilling child care responsibilities. In addition, parent employees exhibited significantly poorer quality of life outcomes than nonparents—higher levels of conflict between work and family I personal life, more stress, and less effective coping. Analyses designed to identify the workplace conditions under which employed parents fared better found that parents had better outcomes (less conflict, less stress, and better coping) when they had jobs with greater autonomy, more schedule control, fewer demands, and greater security. Parents also fared better when they had more supportive workplaces—more supportive supervisors, more supportive workplace cultures, and opportunities for job advancement that were not inhibited by gender or race. In contrast, access to policies, programs, and fringe benefits specifically intended to be family friendly—flexible time and leave policies and dependent care assistance—was not associated with lower levels of work‐family conflict, and only slightly predictive of lower stress and better coping.