America becomes a more 'adult-centered' nation
A new survey finds a decreased emphasis on children in marriage.
from the July 10, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 4
A major flash point: workplace benefits. Family-friendly policies such as flex leave and day-care options not only allocate more of the benefits pie to workers with children, but child-free workers also can be left picking up the slack for co-workers on family leave, says Thomas Coleman with Unmarried America, a nonprofit information service about unmarried adults based in Glendale, Calif.
Myriad government policies, he says, leave the child-free feeling like second-class citizens – everything from the exclusion of siblings under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to greater death benefits given to families by Social Security and the US military.
But with only 35 percent of the US workforce having a child under 18 at home, businesses have begun shifting to more neutral work-life programs. They include the same amount of paid time off for all workers, cafeteria-style benefits, and generic benefits like gym memberships that all workers can utilize.
"No one is advocating ignoring the needs of children or those who are raising children. That's important to everyone in society whether you have children or not, but things have to be more balanced," says Mr. Coleman.
Part of that balancing act, he says, is taking into account the 19 percent of women in their early 40s who are childless. That's up from 9.5 percent 26 years ago.
Women are marrying later, devoting more attention to careers, and waiting longer to have children, which sometimes results in them not having children at all.
Other times the choice is deliberate. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 6.2 percent of women in 2002 between ages 15 and 44 reported that they don't expect to have children in their lifetime – up from 4.9 percent in 1982.
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