Choices no
one should have to make
By Liz O'Donnell
I
was riding home from work on the Commuter Rail one night when the train lost
power. In the dark, without the hum of the engine, I could hear every detail of
my fellow passengers' conversations.
"Listen
honey," I heard a man behind me comforting his wife on the phone,
"Take your mother to her doctor's appointment. This is important. If your
boss seriously fires you for going, we will deal with it."
My
heart at once broke for the wife and swelled for the husband. How I could
relate to her dilemma: go to work or help an elderly parent. And how grateful I
was that she, absent the flexibility to both earn a living and have a life, at
least had the support of an understanding partner.
That
woman from my train ride faced a situation that is far too common. There are an
estimated 44 million unpaid family caregivers in the Unites States and the
majority are women.
According to a new survey by Home Instead, Inc., half of working female caregivers feel they have to choose between being a good employee and being a good daughter. Another study calculated the financial hit women take if they make that false choice between work and family.
According
to MetLife and the National Alliance for Caregiving, women lose an estimated
$324,044 in wages due to caregiving because they reduce their hours, take jobs
with less responsibility or quit altogether.
Or
perhaps, they try to hang on to their jobs and are penalized anyway. The Home
Instead survey also includes the fact that 13 percent of women reported they
were passed over for a promotion or raise due to caregiving and 25 percent say
that at their place of work there is a stigma attached with taking time off to
care for a parent or aging relative.
Caregiving
is stressful enough under good circumstances. The responsibility of helping
someone through aging, illness and end of life, is tremendous. Caregiving while
worrying about your job and financial security can feel unbearable. And yet,
every day working daughters soldier on.
They
soldier on because they know if not them, then who? The Society of Human
Resource Management says working female caregivers spend, on average,
approximately 60 percent more time caring for aging loved ones, compared to
their male counterparts.
And
a recent New York Times article noting both the propensity for women to manage
family care and the lack of a national infrastructure to support our aging
citizens, pointed out, daughter care, "is arguably the most reliable form
of care in America."
If
daughters don't step up, who will? And of course, they soldier on because
regardless of how challenging it may be to balance family and work, they need
to earn a living.
Perhaps
you believe caring for mom and dad is a private family matter, or that
caregiving is yet another so-called woman's issue. Think again. Never mind the
fact that how we support our oldest citizens should be a matter of national
pride, their care is also a national economic concern.
Caregiving
costs American businesses between $17.1 billion and $33.6 annually from
absenteeism, workplace interruptions and replacement costs. If millions of
women aren't contributing to their bank accounts or retirement funds during
their earning years, who is going to pay for the care they will some day need?
Currently
we are looking at deep and potentially devastating cuts to Medicaid at the same
time our senior population is rapidly expanding. As a result, more and more
women, and men, will be called on to assist their parents in the coming years.
Businesses
must do more to support working caregivers. Adopting policies like flexible
schedules, paid family leave policies, employee assistance programs, and
eldercare referrals and subsidiaries, will help caregivers navigate their
competing roles as workers and daughters.
Better
yet, creating workplace cultures that truly value families and care will mean
those two roles will no longer need to compete against each other.
O'Donnell is the
author of Mogul, Mom & Maid: The Balancing Act of the Modern Woman and
founder of WorkingDaughter.com.