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BOOK REVIEW |
Professor and Chair, Department of Social Policy Boston University School of Social Work Boston, MA 02215
Family Leave Policy: The Political Economy of Work and Family in America, by Steven K. Wisensale. M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2001, 297 pp., $68.95 (cloth), $24.95 (paper).
The United States has never had "family policy," but it has long had policies that affect families. Indeed, there is a well-established strain in American thought that the sanctity of the family is especially a sanctuary from the reach of government. Yet, actions (and inactions) of government have long had profound effects on the makeup, workings, and dynamics of family life in America. Among the most recent of these is family leave policy, the focus of Steven K. Wisensale's impressive volume, Family Leave Policy: The Political Economy of Work and Family in America.
Although Wisensale's discussion of family leave policy—its origins, manifestations, and shortcomings—is very well done, the broader context in which he places this discussion represents at least an equal contribution. The rich first section of the book reviews changes in the American family over time, the place of families in American politics, the economics of family life, and the questions posed when issues of work and family life are juxtaposed. The second section assesses the myriad and important state-level efforts that subsequently pushed the family leave agenda forward on the national agenda, and it recounts the checkered political history leading to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Finally, this section provides much detail on the issues that have arisen in the implementation of this federal regulatory effort addressing both formal and informal sectors. The book's concluding section points to future agendas, reviewing proposals for paid leave and exploring lessons to be learned from the family leave experiences of other industrial nations.
Family Policies ... About Individuals
Wisensale's treatment of the historical and conceptual themes surrounding family policy is well worth highlighting. A brief but telling discussion focuses on why America has been hesitant in approaching family policy; the reasons include notions of individual self-reliance, Social Darwinism, states' rights, and the hallowed place of economic markets and the sanctity of contracts between individual parties. As a result, what has passed for family policy historically has been mostly implicit rather than explicit, has been directed toward individuals rather than family units, and, in its formal incarnation, has come in the form of family law (at the state level) rather than as family legislation (at the federal level).
Even as policies affecting families became more pronounced in the 20th century, most of these tenets held. Wisensale argues this to be so even in the case of Social Security, arguably the major "family policy" in America today. Yet, Wisensale notes how the system is built on longstanding understandings about the appropriate roles of men and women and of husbands and wives. In these ways Social Security reinforces the social roles of individuals more than it addresses the collective needs of families. In the case of older people specifically, Social Security's notable effect was to significantly free them from economic dependence on their families (and, conversely, to reduce adult children's economic responsibility for their parents). The dramatic growth in formal health care services for older adults through Medicare and Medicaid funding also served to weaken these economic ties.
The general absence of explicit policy on behalf of younger families and the notable presence of economic security policy on behalf of older Americans render the United States nearly unique among industrial nations. As noted decades ago by Alva Myrdal (1940), America chose to partially socialize and formalize care for the older population while—with the notable exception of public education—leaving the well-being of children largely to the family unit. When public policy and children do intersect, it is usually on an exceptional or problematic basis (public assistance, foster care, residential treatment, juvenile justice), whereas the policy basis for older people is overwhelmingly normative and universal.
In his third chapter, Wisensale explores economic and family issues. In a useful discussion for the many non-economists who will read his book, Wisensale reviews the work of two "family economists" and the concerns of their critics. In particular, he explores the work of Gary Becker, the University of Chicago economist who received the Nobel Prize in 1992. Economists had largely ignored the workings of the family unit until Becker set forth an analysis featuring the family as a rational economic unit, operating not unlike a small factory in which tasks are assigned in terms of skill and efficiency. Becker would leave the economic well-being of families to the market—especially the choice of which family members should enter the labor market—and he inveighs against government programs and their disruptive effects on family functioning. To Becker, it is the marketplace that gives family dynamics their most natural expression.
It is these dynamics—and whether they are natural or imposed, patriarchal or gender neutral—that animate Becker's critics. The market is not benign to families, and government interventions need not be useless or problematic. Moreover, the critics contend, the role division in families is neither natural nor egalitarian, serving instead to reinforce the "exchange value" of men and the resultant domestic responsibilities of women. Finally, there is much disagreement with Becker's assumption that husband and wife are always in agreement about how to assign these roles. As summarized by Wisensale, "this single ‘utility function’ (the economist's term for identical preferences), in which the family is a unit of cooperation and consensus, rarely occurs" (p. 60).
This exchange of views is important in the larger context of Wisensale's book because it illustrates that the contest over assumptions of why people behave the way they do is found in both political and economic analysis as well as within the policy arena itself. How do and should families function independently of government involvement, and what are and should be the goals of such involvement when it occurs? Wisensale's subsequent analysis of the effect of tax policy on families—income tax, earned income tax credit, child care tax credits, and education tax credits—makes this discussion concrete. Certainly, exclusions, deductions, exemptions, and credits create differential incentives for families and for individual family members. Whether these are justified is very much in the eye of the beholder.
The concluding chapter of Wisensale's first section focuses on the intersection of families and work. After another interesting early history, he turns to recent analyses of work/family tensions: time (the overworked American), the role of fathers (reduced work hours as indicator of limited commitment to job), corporate promotional practices ("the mommy track"), and the effect on children (day care and its consequences). He then reviews the work/family cottage industry that has sprung up to analyze these issues and offer public and private policy options about them (initiatives that may be seen as family-friendly by one think tank while being viewed by another as an onerous burden imposed by government on employers).
In this series of relatively discrete discussions, Wisensale manages to mix both macro- and micro-level perspectives on the critical institutions: markets, families, employers, and government. One comes away appreciating not only how almost any formal initiative—private or public sector—directed at families is controversial but also realizing how imperfect our understanding is of the effect different interventions will have.
Family Leave Policies
The book's middle section, addressing family leave policy directly, explores state and federal initiatives and the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993. Having previously introduced readers to the larger ideological arguments about the respective places of family and government in American life, Wisensale turns here to the vagaries of determining the grounds for eligibility for leave from work should such policies exist. He traces these concerns from the late 19th century through to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, and in the subsequent chapter to four iterations of the FMLA in the 1980s before it was ultimately enacted.
Beyond addressing key legislation central to the book's purposes, these discussions illustrate as well the importance of determining, in any given instance, which "face of an issue" shall in fact be determinative. Thus, in an early case, Lochner v. New York (1905), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New York could not limit work hours in bakeries, arguing that the statute was illegal labor law—interfering with contracts—rather than needed health and safety law. Whereas Lochner involved only men, a later Supreme Court Case involving the famous "Brandeis brief," Muller v. Oregon (1908), centered on the female employees of an Oregon laundry. Louis Brandeis argued (successfully) that the state's 10-hour law did not violate freedom of contract because it affected only women, who were hurt primarily because of their "special physical organization."
Moving toward the present day, Wisensale shows how arguments surrounding leave policy have centered on competing social and legal constructions: "maternity" versus "disability," "maternal" versus "parental," "women" versus "mothers," "work" versus "motherhood," "pregnant women" versus "non-pregnant women and men."
In the most recent period, such tensions have centered on "special treatment" versus "equal treatment," and on "family" versus "maternal" responsibilities as the basis for leave benefits. On the first point, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 was challenged by groups of men and their employers, who argued that disabled men were discriminated against by a law applicable only to women. While some women's groups argued simply that a pregnancy provision was not discriminatory toward men, other women's groups objected to (pregnant) women being treated as a special class. Behind their concerns was fear that the special treatment being afforded women would serve, in fact, as the basis for discrimination against them. They insisted that extended leave policies should be extended to all workers regardless of the reason for disability, not just for reasons of maternity.
As the debate between special and equal treatment moved from the legal to the political arena, proponents of the latter basis prevailed, pressing for legislation that would establish "universal, non-gender-based parental leave based on the principles of equal rights" (Jacobs & Davies, 1994, quoted in Wisensale, p. 97). With the basis of responsibility then soon broadening from "maternal" and "parent" to "family" and the basis for leave broadening from "disability" to "medical," the final linguistic and legal steps were taken toward reaching what was to become the FMLA.
The Family and Medical Leave Act
Wisensale recounts in interesting detail the struggles between the executive and legislative branch as they moved toward enactment of the FMLA. Four times a bill was considered during the 1980s, and four times it was defeated. Divisions among proponents of the larger concept, shortcomings in marshalling support of the undecided, and attempts to deal with a broader environment of interests hostile to the legislation figured into each of these episodes. Roughly paralleling the sequencing of the conceptual issues around family leave, the bill titles moved toward what ultimately became law in 1993. Thus, from the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, passed in 1978, we move to:
The last of these failed to pass only because the House failed to override President Bush's veto after the Senate had done so. With Bill Clinton's election, the pieces were all in place, as acknowledged by Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, who offered his support in the belief that leave policy would reduce the demand for abortions among working women.
Wisensale also reviews actions subsequent to enactment, relying on the report of the Commission on Leave (1996), a major analysis by Jane Waldfogel (1999), and a review of court cases that were brought during the 1990s. The most frequent issues in the legal cases were job security and employee illness, with employers winning most of the cases brought. Relatively few cases were brought by reason of "family illness." Of leave taken overall, the largest amount was for care of newborns, and those leaves were of the longest duration. Those taken for reason of an ailing parent were, in contrast, quite short in duration. The Commission's report found business less adversely affected than critics had feared (or hoped), with the major concerns, not surprisingly, being registered by smaller firms (though only firms with 50 or more employees are covered under the law).
Pending Issues
The significance of the FMLA depends, in part, on perspective. The title of Judith Gonyea's (2002) recent presentation at the 55th Annual Scientific Meeting of The Gerontological Society of America captured this subjectivity nicely: "The Family and Medical Leave Act: Much Ado About a Little or Little Ado About a Lot?" However, beyond amending the legislation to cover smaller employers (say, those with 25 or more employees) or extending eligibility for leave benefits (say, to support attendance at parent-teacher conferences), the largest remaining issue centers on the question of paid leave. Of industrial nations, only the United States, Australia, and New Zealand do not pay people while on leave.
Wisensale reviews the executive order signed by President Clinton for using unemployment insurance (UI) trust funds to support paid leave. The president proposed allowing states to tap UI surpluses to support families after birth or adoption of a child, the rationale being such individuals would be considered "temporarily unemployed," a status states have been permitted to support under the existing UI program. Time off for illness and care for other family members would not have been compensated under the proposal. Opposition to the executive order centered on questions of both its purpose and the cost to the UI program. Events subsequent to Clinton's order (and Wisensale's book) make this debate look almost precious. Both federal and state UI budget surpluses are fast disappearing or gone, and President Bush is currently proposing repeal of the Clinton UI leave option. At the state level, however, five states continue to offer Temporary Disability Insurance, and California has just enacted a joint employer-employee funded paid leave program.
In his penultimate chapter, Wisensale compares U.S. leave policies to those of other industrial nations. The most interesting data are those showing a much higher percentage of women working full-time in the United States (60%) than elsewhere: United Kingdom (19%), France (11%), Germany (7%), and Sweden (5%). However, caution is required in interpreting these data. Women in many European countries are far more attached to the labor force than these figures suggest (often working half to three-quarter time), and it is the presence of liberal leave policies that allow (indeed, actively promote) women with children of various ages to work less. As Wisensale notes, the point revealed by these labor force discrepancies is that they form a base from which American women (and many men) are actively pursuing liberalized leave policy and not that European women are somehow unimportant players in the labor forces of these nations.
Conclusion
Wisensale concludes his book with a strong call for expanded family leave, certainly to include paid leave. He justifies this in part by being clear about his own larger ideological preferences. Quoting George Lakoff (1996), he notes that a liberal is the one "who picks up the baby when it cries in the night" (quoted in Wisensale, p. 3). Beyond that, he highlights the cost of inaction to families, employers, and the larger economy. These conclusions are more controversial, given contrary analysis pointing to direct costs well into the billions of dollars in providing even quite modest paid leave.
More to the point, certainly for purposes here, is Wisensale's cautioning against trading off breadth of leave coverage in exchange for supporting paid leave around newborns and the newly adopted, known, following the Clinton initiative, as "baby UI." In Wisensale's view, limiting paid coverage to these reasons would represent a misguided retreat from needed expansions that have taken place in U.S. leave policy since the late 1970s. His preference and that of many others is to have paid family leave policy, including provisions aiding workers, spouses, parents, and older children. For obvious reasons, gerontologists can well be expected to share this view. In so doing, however, they should keep in mind that the United States has in place very significant policies supporting the oldest of family members, although controversy lingers in some circles about how family friendly those policies may indeed be.
References
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