Robert Reich on Families & Children Former Secretary of Labor; Democratic Challenger MA Governor

Women entering paid work in 1970s has reshaped the family

Starting in the late 1970s, the American middle class honed coping mechanisms , allowing it to behave as though it was still taking home the same share of total income as it had during the Great Prosperity [of the 1960s. One] coping mechanism was that Families seem to have reached the limit, however, a point of diminishing returns where the costs of hiring others to help in the running of a household or to take care of the children, or both, exceeds the apparent benefits of the additional income. This transition of women into paid work has been one of the most important social and economic changes to occur over the last four decades. It has reshaped American families and challenged traditional patterns of child rearing and child care.

Paid leave to care for child or elderly relative

It means prohibiting discrimination against someone because she is a woman, or wants to raise a family, or has to attend to family needs.

It means taking the next step on Family and Medical Leave, and giving PAID leave to employees who must take some time off to care for a child or elderly relative.

It means ensuring affordable child care and elder care.

It means automatically raising the minimum wage when inflation reduces the value of the dollar.

It means expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and putting more money back in the pockets of millions of working families with modest incomes.

It means making unemployment insurance available to anyone who loses a job--regardless of how long she had held the particular job she lost.

It means helping people save for their retirement by expanding pension coverage.

Marriage declined in the 1970s because wages stagnated

25 years ago, a man with a stable job in the old mass-production economy could contribute quite a lot. Moreover, most women lacked a separate source of income. Under these circumstances, a man's commitment to a stable marriage had significant value to a woman. Since then, such a commitment has steadily declined in value, like a share of stock in a company that's going downhill.

Consider also HER own separate stream of income. Although starting from a much lower level than men and still lagging behind, her stock is generally going up.

Women no longer have to marry in order to have some economic security. The rising rate of divorce already has slowed, largely because fewer women are getting married in the first place.

Crisis of illegitimacy is a misleading half-truth

In other words, some of the so-called "crisis of illegitimacy" is a by-product of the larger trends toward fewer marriages and fewer children born to married couples. As more women have begun to have fewer children, or no children, even the rate of births to unmarried women has begun to level off.

Here's another misleading half-truth: Nearly 70% of black babies are born to black single mothers. What you don't hear is that black women are having fewer babies to begin with.

Definition of family is changing because people want it

Most families still conform to these 4 basic criteria, but to a lesser extent. Connections are becoming more temporary, people spend less time together, couples are having fewer children, financial support between spouses is eroding, and care and attention are being subcontracted. Extend these trends into the future, and "family" may mean something entirely different.

This does not necessarily signify a problem. People WANT this new kind of "family" life--at least in the superficial (and admittedly tautological) sense that they've chosen it for themselves. Given the new economy, the choices people are making about family are entirely rational.

Make child care a fully tax-deductible business expense

And businesses are quickly transforming themselves into contractual networks in which fewer workers are "employees" in the old sense. Thus, such requirements on employers may be less effective over the long term than direct public supports for people who work. One such support could be made available through the tax system. Because the costs of child care (and, often, of caring for an elderly relative) are literally "business expenses" that would not be incurred absent paid work, such expenses might be made fully deductible from income taxes.

Better jobs programs would result in more stable marriages

30 years ago, most men had stable jobs that earned them paychecks big enough to support families. Men’s paychecks have become more precarious. Median wages have actually dropped, and his job might vanish tomorrow. Meanwhile women have streamed into the work force. It would be entirely rational for a woman in today’s economy to say, in effect: “Fella, you can stay with me as long as you contribute to household expenses. But when your contribution stops or takes a dive, you’re out of here.”

So rather than start a government campaign to promote marriage, perhaps a better way to improve the odds that fragile families will stay together is to help men-and women-become and stay gainfully employed. Policy-makers don’t normally think about job training and education as parts of a marriage agenda, but they should.

Balance of family & job is harder in new economy

Along with bigger paychecks and better cell phones, we work harder and longer, says Reich. And the lack of balance is taking its toll on our personal lives. “Each of us assumes that it’s our own fault,” he says. “We fret that we are inadequate workers or inadequate parents or members of communities. But we have to understand that we’re not alone and there are reasons for these feelings that have to do with the way the economy has evolved.”

[Reich personally felt left with] no time, in particular, for his family. Reich jumped out of the rat race, stepping down from his position in 1997 to spend more time with his family.