Societal Inequalities – Evidence, Institutional Arrangements and Discrimination

Gender

The primary responsibility for family caretaking often falls on women, who represent 60 percent of unpaid caregivers to family and friends in the United States.[1]  According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics the majority of women in the United States are in the workforce.[2]  Due to the heavy burden of caretaking on women and their significant participation in the labor force women’s working lives are more affected than men’s by the need to take time off of work to attend to caregiving activities.  Although female employees are slightly more likely to have access to paid sick leave compared to men (see table 1 below), poor women fare worse than their better off counterparts.  Sixty-four percent of women with family income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level are not paid when they miss work to care for a sick child compared to 37 percent of women in higher income families.[3]

Men face a different challenge.  They are increasingly taking on caretaking obligations, and men who request paid time for caretaking purposes are often discriminated against because of stereotypes that caretaking is only ‘‘women’s work’’.[4]  This discrimination not only impacts on men, but indirectly impacts women because if men are discouraged from taking time off to care for their children, women are left with a larger caretaking burden which perpetuates the cycle.  Employers’ reliance on persistent stereotypes about the roles of men and women in the workplace and in the home continues a cycle of discrimination and fosters stereotypical views about women’s commitment to work and their value as employees.[5]  These social practices also discriminate against men and their ability to participate fully in the caretaking responsibilities of their families.  The unequal access of paid sick leave and more importantly the social practices that determine the acceptance of taking leave can hinder a woman’s career and a man’s family experience.  This is largely due to gender stereotypes. 

Single Parents and the Poor

Due to the stagnation of real incomes starting in the 1970’s, family income has grown by adding a second salary – generally the woman’s.  Dual income households play a critical role in maintaining the middleclass and single income households, particularly single parents are over represented in the lower class.  At 34 percent, the United States has the highest percentage of single parent families among developed countries.[6]  The vast majority (84 percent)[7] of single parents are women who, in many cases, do not have another parent with whom to share the burden of income earning and care-taking.  As a group, single parents earn less than married individuals[8] and they are less likely to have access to paid sick leave.[9] 

For families in the lowest quartile of earners, 79 percent lack access to paid sick time.  For those in the next 2 quartiles, 46 and 38 percent, respectively, lack access to paid sick time. Even for families in the highest income quartile, 28 percent lack access to paid sick time.[10]  With the lower class growing and the middle class receding, we can expect that more employees will end up in the lowest quartile where 79 percent of people do not have access to paid sick time.  In view of Levine’s argument that the unevenness of access to paid leave exacerbates wage inequality,[11] this deterioration of employee status serves to further impoverish the poor and trap people in the cycle of poverty. 

Poor employees have shorter tenure on average than better off employees which might be cited as a reason for having less access to leave, however Phillips shows that, “for poor working parents, longer job tenure is not associated with increased access to paid leave.”[12]  Therefore, the belief that longer tenure equals greater leave benefits does not apply to this segment of society, highlighting a discriminatory practice.  Without available leave, the poor risk losing their jobs if they need to stay home with a sick child.[13]  Sixteen percent of workers report that they or a family member have been fired, suspended, or otherwise punished or that they would be fired if they missed work due to illness.[14]  Exiting employees from the workforce because they have a sick child is not in the best interest of society.