Changing Families, Changing Workplaces

Families at all income levels are subject to the challenge of balancing work and family obligations. “Changing Families, Changing Workplaces,” presents an overview of the demographic changes that have shaped the labor force in the U.S. over the past 50 years.

Between 1975 and 2009, the labor force rate of mothers with children under age 18 increased from 47.4 to 71.6 percent. During 1961 to 1965, the share of women working during their first pregnancy was 44 percent; by 2001 to 2003 the share had climbed to two-thirds. Over the same period, the number of children living with a single parent increased sharply. In 2009 single mothers had an overall labor force participation rate of 76 percent.

Nonstandard work schedules and job insecurity are two dominant challenges for families. For high-income families, the problem can be too many hours of work while for low-income families the problem is often too few hours and insufficient income. Middle-income families, meanwhile, can have incomes that are too low to purchase sufficient child care but too high to qualify for public programs. The report notes that solutions must focus on institutions that support working families (e.g., schools, child care centers, medical care, after-school programs) in order to meet this multiplicity of needs.

“Changing Families, Changing Workplaces” appears in the Fall 2011 issue of The Future of Children, a collaboration of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution.

Read the report.