When Jerry Steinberg first started working as a teacher in Sioux Lookout, Ont., he noticed that almost all of his colleagues who attended after-hours meetings were either childless or had grown kids.

"I thought, 'Wow, all my colleagues who have children are home now, and they're getting paid as much as we are,' " Mr. Steinberg says. "All they have to do is say 'My kid ...' and all is excused."

According to a 2003 study by the University of Tulsa, Steinberg isn't the only person to notice the disparity. More than half of America's childless singles feel put-upon - whether it be because of fewer benefits, longer hours, mandatory overtime, or less flexible vacation - by their married and child-rearing co-workers. As part of his own remedy, Steinberg started an international social club for childless couples and singles called NO KIDDING!, where Steinberg holds the eminent office of "Founding Non-Father."

After decades of "family friendly" initiatives in offices across the country, older and younger workers like Steinberg are speaking out about what they see as a particularly sensitive and decidedly obscure form of discrimination.

"I think one of the biggest issues is that people assume that if you're single, you don't have a life," says Bella DePaulo, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "You don't have anything to do with your time, or you don't have anything that qualifies as being as important as what married people have to do." Prof. DePaulo is the author of "Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized and Ignored and Still Live Happily Ever After."

"It's just assumed that you will do whatever the rest of the workforce doesn't want to do," DePaulo says. "Their excuses can be totally flimsy, and on that excuse you have to work late."

On the other hand, a study to be released in August by the University of Texas at Arlington shows that fostering a singles-friendly office environment can distinctly increase employee retention.

Changing traditional "here's what you get" benefit plans to "cafeteria style" plans is now in vogue, for example. In a "cafeteria" plan, employees pick and choose benefits from a host of options, up to a specified monetary limit. The plan allows for different lifestyles without rewarding larger families with more benefits for the same job.

But according to the University of Tulsa study, the nonmonetary elements of employee relations may be just as important - if not more so.

"What we found was that ... if people felt social inclusion, they were more committed to their company," says Wendy Casper, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who worked on the study. "They felt more emotional attachment to their company, and they were less likely to look for another job." She notes that many "work- family" programs are being more neutrally renamed as "work-life" programs.

In her published discussion of the study's results, Ms. Casper and her colleagues speculate that single and childless workers have stronger needs for workplace social inclusion because their relationships and overall sense of community are more likely to be connected to their jobs.

The problem for employers, say management analysts, is that while leaning on single staffers for emergencies and immediate assistance may be efficient in the short-term, alienating workers is never a cost-efficient strategy for the longterm.

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