Recent+Work+Force+for+Women

 RECENT WORKFORCE FOR WOMEN: News Articles Regarding the Role of Women in the Workforce ARTICLE 1 February 6, 2009 =As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men in Job Force = By CATHERINE RAMPELL With the recession on the brink of becoming the longest in the postwar era, a milestone may be at hand: Women are poised to surpass men on the nation’s payrolls, taking the majority for the first time in American history. The reason has less to do with gender equality than with where the ax is falling. The proportion of women who are working has changed very little since the recession started. But a full 82 percent of the job losses have befallen men, who are heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction. Women tend to be employed in areas like education and health care, which are less sensitive to economic ups and downs, and in jobs that allow more time for child care and other domestic work. “Given how stark and concentrated the job losses are among men, and that women represented a high proportion of the labor force in the beginning of this recession, women are now bearing the burden — or the opportunity, one could say — of being breadwinners,” says Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress. Economists have predicted before that women would one day dominate the labor force as more ventured outside the home. The number of women entering the work force slowed and even dipped during the boom years earlier this decade, though, prompting a debate about whether women truly wanted to be both breadwinners and caregivers. Should the male-dominated layoffs of the current recession continue — and Friday’s jobs report for January may offer more insight — the debate will be moot. A deep and prolonged recession, therefore, may change not only household budgets and habits; it may also challenge longstanding gender roles. In recessions, the percentage of families supported by women tends to rise slightly, and it is expected to do so when this year’s numbers are tallied. As of November, women held 49.1 percent of the nation’s jobs, according to nonfarm payroll data collected by the [|Bureau of Labor Statistics]. By another measure, including farm workers and the self-employed, women constituted 47.1 percent of the work force. Women may be safer in their jobs, but tend to find it harder to support a family. For one thing, they work fewer overall hours than men. Women are much more likely to be in part-time jobs without health insurance or unemployment insurance. Even in full-time jobs, women earn 80 cents for each dollar of their male counterparts’ income, according to the government data. “A lot of jobs that men have lost in fields like manufacturing were good union jobs with great health care plans,” says Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project. “The jobs women have — and are supporting their families with — are not necessarily as good.” Nasreen Mohammed, for example, works five days a week, 51 weeks a year, without sick days or health benefits. She runs a small day care business out of her home in Milpitas, Calif., and recently expanded her services to include after-school care. The business brings in about $30,000 annually, she says, far less than the $150,000 her husband earned in the marketing and sales job he lost over a year ago. “It’s peanuts,” she says. She switched from being a full-time homemaker to a full-time businesswoman when her husband was laid off previously. She says she unexpectedly discovered that she loves her job, even if it is demanding. Still, her husband, Javed, says he and their three children — who are in third grade, junior college and law school — worry about her health, and hope things can “return to the old days.” “In terms of the financial benefit from her work, we all benefit,” he says. “But in terms of getting my wife’s attention, from the youngest daughter to our oldest, we can’t wait for the day that my job is secure and she doesn’t have to do day care anymore.” Women like Ms. Mohammed find themselves at the head of once-separate spheres: work and household. While women appear to be sole breadwinners in greater numbers, they are likely to remain responsible for most domestic responsibilities at home. On average, employed women devote much more time to child care and housework than employed men do, according to recent data from the government’s American Time Use Survey analyzed by two economists, Alan B. Krueger and Andreas Mueller. When women are unemployed and looking for a job, the time they spend daily taking care of children nearly doubles. Unemployed men’s child care duties, by contrast, are virtually identical to those of their working counterparts, and they instead spend more time sleeping, watching TV and looking for a job, along with other domestic activities. Many of the unemployed men interviewed say they have tried to help out with cooking, veterinarian appointments and other chores, but they have not had time to do more because job-hunting consumes their days. “The main priority is finding a job and putting in the time to do that,” says John Baruch, in Arlington Heights, Ill., who estimates he spends 35 to 45 hours a week looking for work since being laid off in January 2008. While he has helped care for his wife’s aging parents, the couple still sometimes butt heads over who does things like walking the dog, now that he is out of work. He puts it this way: “As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I’ve been to told me: ‘You’re out of a job, but it’s not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.’ ” Many women say they expect their family roles to remain the same, even if economic circumstances have changed for now. “I don’t know if I’d really call myself a ‘breadwinner,’ since I earn practically nothing,” says Linda Saxby, who assists the librarian at the Cypress, Tex., high school her two daughters attend. Her husband, whose executive-level position was eliminated last May, had been earning $225,000, and the family is now primarily living off savings. Historically, the way couples divide household jobs has been fairly resistant to change, says Heidi Hartmann, president and chief economist at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. “Over a long, 20-year period, married men have stepped up to the plate a little bit, but not as much as married women have dropped off in the time they spend on household chores,” Ms. Hartmann says. This suggests some domestic duties have been outsourced, as when takeout substitutes for cooking, for example. And as declining incomes force families to cut back on these outlays, she says, “women will most likely pick up the slack.” A severe recession could put pressure on these roles. “It has definitely put a strain” on my marriage, says Debbie Harlan, an executive assistant at a hospital system in Sarasota, Fla. Four months ago, her husband closed his 10-year-old independent car sales business, and the couple have been asking their children to help with bills. “So far we’ve worked through it, but there have been times when I wasn’t sure we could.” The Mohammeds say things are not as stressful as they were the last time Mr. Mohammed lost his job. He has been helping out with the cooking and with paperwork for his wife’s business, and she says she works to prop up family morale. “Things are not happy in the house if I blame him all the time, so I don’t do any of that anymore,” Ms. Mohammed says. “I know he is doing his best.”

ARTICLE 2 By Rudi Williams American Forces Press Service
 * ====Women Climbing Success Ladder in Military, DoD Civilian Work Force ====

|| //Gail H. McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans, tells attendees at DoD's Women's History Month observance March 21 at the Women in Military Service for America that women have come a long in the military and DoD's civilian work force. Photo by Rudi Williams // (Click photo for screen-resolution image);[|high-resolution image] available. ||  || This year's Women's History Month theme, "Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams," focuses on women who helped pave the way for other women to climb the ladder of success in the military and civilian work force, said Gail McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans, during DoD's Women's History Month observance at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial here. Women's History Month presents an opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of women from the past, present and future, McGinn said. "Today, women make up 14.6 percent of the active-duty force and over one third of the DoD civilian force," she said. "Nearly half of the U.S. labor force is female. An increasing proportion of DoD senior-level active-duty and civilian positions are filled by women." McGinn, the observance's presiding official, said the overall representation of women in DoD senior-level positions has improved significantly. "However, the Department of Defense, along with other federal agencies, is facing a shortage in key critical occupations and educational disciplines that must be addressed proactively," she said. She pointed out that the Defense Department is the largest federal employer, with more than 750,000 civilians, 1.3 million guardsmen and reservist, and 1.4 million active-duty personnel. The observance highlighted 121 military and civilian female role models working in science, engineering, math or technology disciplines. "We asked the defense components to spotlight some of their role models in these areas," McGinn said. "The work that these fine women do is critical to our national security. Today, we celebrate their contributions and unwavering commitment to DoD." Some of the women traveled from throughout the country and as far away as Germany and Alaska to take part in the program. "These women are doing great things for the Department of Defense," McGinn said.
 * WASHINGTON, March 22, 2006 – Women have come a long way in the military services and federal government, and many of them have left legacies for future generations to follow, a top Defense Department official said here yesterday. ||  || [[image:http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/newsstoryPhoto/2006-03/lowres_20060322152544_1womens_history-gail-2.jpg caption="Click photo for screen-resolution image" link="http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/newsstoryPhoto/2006-03/screen_20060322152544_1womens_history-gail-2.jpg"]]

ARTICLE 3 || <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">U.S. Employers Pushing Women Out of Work Force || WeNews correspondent || NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--As Lisa Seftel was planning for her first child, she thought she had struck a good deal with her boss. After the baby came, she'd work three days managing a family-owned consultancy's Manhattan headquarters and two days at home in a New York suburb. This would give her full benefits and let her share child care with her husband. Seftel would continue to work on the most important projects at the company. But in 2003 she discovered the "dark side" of the U.S. workplace, she said. After the baby was born, her boss reneged, saying she could either work five days a week in the office or three days at home. "Like so many women, I was pushed out and became a full-time mother," said Seftel. "I'm now working as a Mary Kay representative, a position that enables me to meet my financial and caregiving responsibilities, which was impossible in the corporate world." The choices her boss offered would have decimated either her earnings or her work-life balance, Seftel said. "If I worked five days, I would have had to pay thousands of dollars for child care, and been relegated to an insignificant role in my daughter's early life. If I worked three days, our family would have had no health insurance; my husband's employer didn't provide it and we couldn't afford a family policy. My career would have never recovered because I would have been deprived of the experiences necessary to acquire new skills." The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 60 percent of married mothers are now in the work force, 4 percentage points lower than in 1997. The rate of married mothers of infants who work fell 6 percentage points to 53 percent. With mothers representing about two-thirds of adult women those figures help explain why the United States is one of only two industrialized countries--the other is Japan--out of 23 where women's work force participation rate fell between 1994 and 2006, according to data from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
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 * <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Run Date: 06/16/08 ||
 * <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">By Sharon Johnson
 * //<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Rigid work schedules, bias, scarce child care, unpaid caregiving leaves, little sick time. Policy analysts say these realities help explain U.S. women's sagging work-force participation. Second in "The Memo" series on the status of U.S. women. // ||
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<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Reversal of Trend
<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">From the 1950s through the 1990s the percentage of U.S. women in the paid work force steadily increased. But that trend has begun to reverse and today 3.3 million fewer women are working than would be if the trend had continued. While a spate of news reports has explained the trend as women preferring to stay home or "opting out," an array of women's policy groups disagree. The real explanation, they contend, is a workplace that fails women on some basic interlocking fronts: inflexible scheduling requirements, job discrimination, lack of child care, lack of parental leave, lack of sick leave. Researchers for the San Francisco-based Center for WorkLife Law found 13,000 cases of discrimination that showed that mothers were 79 percent less likely to be hired and 100 percent less likely to be promoted because they are held to a higher standard than non-mothers in their companies. "Many women couldn't crack the motherhood ceiling," said Joan C. Williams, founding director of the center. "They were given fewer opportunities to work on challenging assignments and even told, you can have your baby or your career." The United States, Swaziland, Liberia, Lesotho and Papua New Guinea are the only countries among 173 surveyed in 2007 by the Institute for Health and Social Policy at Montreal's McGill University that don't guarantee paid maternity leave to new mothers.

<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Limits on Family Leave
<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">The Family Medical Leave Act, which provides 12 weeks of job-protected leave to new parents or adoptive parents or caregivers of elderly relatives, only applies to firms with 50 workers or more, said Williams. "This disproportionately affects women who earn low wages . . . or work for small companies." Then there's the cost of child care, which ran between $4,000 and $20,000 a year per child in 2001, according to a study from the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. Parents of children with special needs and families who lived in areas where the cost of living was higher paid even more. These costs were prohibitive for one-fourth of U.S. families with children and earnings less than $25,000 a year. Rosemary Harris, a spokesperson of Milwaukee-based 9to5 National Association of Working Women, says all these hurdles are higher for women in lower-wage work. "Many restaurant, clerical and other workers find that they have been fired when they take off a day to look after a sick child or parent," she said. "They also work when they are ill and develop serious health problems that force them to give up their jobs." In March the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a think tank in Washington, D.C., found that only 48.5 percent of women had earnings each year from 1983 to 1998, compared to 84 percent of men. Three out of 10 women reported four or more years without earnings compared to 1 in 20 men. In any single year, women were more likely to work fewer hours, an average of 500 hours or 22 percent less than men. "Lower earnings have serious implications for women's financial security," said Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research and a co-author of the report. "Over the 15-year-period, the average woman earned $273,592; 62 percent less than the average man who earned $722,693."

<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Hard-Pressed in Old Age
<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Later in life, the gender wage gap means that women--who live an average of five years longer than men--must depend on Social Security checks of about $800 a month versus $1,177 for the average man. At the same time fewer women than men are qualifying for pensions or employer-sponsored retirement plans. That leads to 1 in 10 female retirees living on less than $10,000 a year; 1 in 5 unmarried elderly women qualifying as poor. Those economic risks, however, are rarely depicted in media reports, according to a 2006 study by the Center for WorkLife Law, a research and advocacy group at the University of California's Hastings College of Law. The analysis of 119 newspaper articles published from 1980 to 2006 often found a story about women voluntarily "opting out"--cutting back on work or leaving the work force--because they realized they "couldn't have it all" and were foregoing careers in favor of traditional motherhood. In addition to downplaying the impact on overall family finances, the articles painted an overly rosy picture of women's chances of picking up their careers. "Women aren't opting out," said the center's Williams, lead author of the report. "They are pushed out by job discrimination, lack of child care and workplace inflexibility." Plenty of women's groups are calling for change. "We have proposed a mothers' economic empowerment agenda that includes paid family leave for both parents, a refundable caregiver tax credit and benefits for part-time wage earners and other policies," said Valerie Young, advocacy coordinator for the National Association of Mothers' Centers, based in Jericho, N.Y. "If the U.S. wants to remain competitive in the global economy, it must do a better job of keeping our high value capital--women--in the paid labor force and available to those who depend upon them for care." Sharon Johnson is a New York City freelance writer. ||

<span style="font-size: 20px; color: #f00fa3; font-family: Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> ARTICLE 4 =<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Women's work: challenges still exist for women in the workforce = <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> By Adam Zewe **<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Community News **<span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Posted Nov 09, 2008 @ 10:10 AMLast update Nov 10, 2008 @ 03:44 PM Hockessin, Del. — The number of working women in America has almost quadrupled in the past 50 years and the nation has seen women rise through the ranks in many traditionally male-dominated careers. Nine years ago, Eileen Collins became the first female astronaut to pilot a space shuttle; last year, Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and on Jan. 1, Ellen Kullman will become the first female CEO of DuPont. But despite the progress working women have made, they still face challenges in the workplace because of their gender, said Judy Czyzewski, president of Wilmington Women in Business, a networking organization for professional women. Equal pay between men and women is the major issue that affects working women in nearly every industry, said Czyzewski, 38, of Brandywine Hundred. Women in Delaware earn 79.6 percent of what their male counterparts earn, which is slightly higher than the national average of 77.6 percent, according to the AFL-CIO. The wage gap can be partly explained by the lower value some employers place on the work of women, Czyzewski said, but another factor is how women approach salary negotiations. “Not all women ask for what they want or what they deserve,” she said. But progress has been made in closing the wage gap. The AFL-CIO reports that pay for women in Delaware increased 11.5 percent in the past decade while pay for men increased only 4.1 percent. Even still, at that rate, Delaware women will not earn equal pay until 2034. Pay is not the only inequality women can face in the workplace, she said. Some companies are led by men who only communicate with their female employees in a demeaning way. “Women, especially if they are not secure in their abilities, have a tendency to allow themselves to be belittled and held back,” she said. Czyzewski knows firsthand about the inequalities that exist in corporate culture. She worked for an organization early in her career she said was led by a group of male bullies who showed her no respect. After dealing with that treatment for a while, she said she began to question her own capabilities and it was only after she became more confident that she realized she had to change jobs to get the respect she deserved. The corporate world, which employs more than 20,000 Delaware women, has been faster to change than some industries, she said, and strong, confident, hard-working women have had a lot to do with it. It was confidence that helped Rebecca Dengler rise to the rank of teaching professional at Ed “Porky” Oliver Golf Club in Wilmington, despite the fact that golf is an industry dominated by men. Dengler, 44, of West Chester, Pa., is one of only a handful of female golf professionals in the region and she said it is unbelievable that more women aren’t employed on the links. At golf conferences, she said she’ll be lucky to see more than two other women in a room with 300 golf professionals and, at one of the most recent conferences she attended, every speaker addressed the crowd as “gentlemen.” “It’s just like a snapshot of our society,” she said. “I still don’t think women are valued for their worth in a lot of areas.” Golf has been a slow industry to change partly because of the sport’s tradition of exclusivity, she said. Dengler remembered seeing a clipping of a magazine article from the 1950s titled “Keeping women off the golf course.” Fifty years later, not a lot has changed, she said. Dengler left a job at a golf course because she was not treated fairly by her male bosses. The industry’s male dominance increases the likelihood of that type of situation, she said. While it is frustrating to be in an industry with such a heavy male majority, she said it is important that women maintain their own personality, despite the pressures of their work situation. "I don't think women need to mold themselves like men," she said. "I don't think we should be palling around with the guys at night smoking cigars. That's not us." The golf industry will someday be forced to change by the economy, Dengler said, especially since 3 million fewer rounds of golf were played last year nationwide. Women golfers are an untapped market that golf courses will need to reach to be successful, she said, and more female golf professionals will be needed to teach new women golfers the game. But for now, Dengler said she operates in what is very much a man’s world. Male dominance has also been a tradition that has been slow to change in the radio industry, said Jane Bartsch, general manager of WJBR. Only about 14 percent of radio station general managers are women and the high number of male radio station owners probably has a lot to do with that, said Bartsch, 59, of Wilmington. “But it’s not just the people above you; it’s the people beneath you. There is a stigma,” she said. “There are a lot of men who don’t like to work for a woman.” When Bartsch was hired by WJBR five years ago, she said the tension she felt from the station’s male employees was almost palpable. Her predecessor was a man and she could tell the station’s culture was very male-dominant, she said. “By the end of my first day, a couple of women came into my office and said, ‘We are so glad you are here because it’s been like a locker room,’” she said. Her open-door policy and her management style quickly showed the employees that she was a fair, hard-working and dedicated leader, she said, and she has not encountered any gender issues since then. Bartsch has led many radio stations over her career and said she has never been passed up for a job because of her gender, but the working world was very different when she started her career in the early 1970s. She worked in advertising in New York City before she began her career in radio and said she watched male employees receive raises and promotions ahead of her, but she never let it hold her back. The confidence she built early in her career was instrumental in her rise to the top of the executive ladder, she said. “If in your environment, you think it’s a man’s world, so what. That’s not the worst challenge in the world,” she said. “And if it means you’ve got to work a little harder and work a little smarter and be a little louder, then do it.”

<span style="font-size: 20px; color: #f00fa3; font-family: Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif; text-align: left;">ARTICLE 5 <span style="display: block; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: left;">New Options for Women Balancing Work and Family Joyce A. Shriner <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> Extension Educator, FCS/County Extension Director, OSU Extension, Hocking CountyJenna M. Shriner <span style="display: block; font-family: Minion,Minion; text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Minion,Minion;"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">According to the Center for Women and Work, "In 1900 women made up 18.4 percent of the working population. Today, women make up 46.4 percent of the labor force." Nearly 72 percent of women with children younger than 18 are in the workforce, many of whom do not have a choice about whether or not to work. A study conducted by three professors (Shapiro, Ingols, and Blake-Beard) at the Simmons School of Management showed that the majority of women (86 percent) in their sample "reported providing more than half of their household incomes, with over a third totally responsible for paying the bills" (2007, p. 2).A <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: justify;">While women take on additional responsibilities away from home, their household duties often remain the same. Women often multitask, such as doing laundry while cooking dinner, to complete household tasks. According to Mattingly and Bianchi, "women typically feel somewhat more time-pressured than do men; 34.4% of women report that they always feel rushed, while only 28.8% of men do" (2003, p. 1022). In addition, Milkie et al. found that "a significant percentage—almost half—of American parents residing with their children feel that they spend too little time with them" (2004, p. 757). Given these conditions, it is not surprising that Raskin (2006, p. 1374) found that work-family issues accounted for 43% of the variance in turnover intent, suggesting that family friendliness and supervisor support for working mothers is most important in predicting turnover intent …. Working mothers were less likely to intend to quit their jobs when they worked at supportive organizations that were sensitive to and responsive to the needs of working mothers. Employers are beginning to realize the importance of helping employees balance their work and family lives. Cullen et al. (2003, p. 12) said that some family-friendly policies and practices that have been found to be helpful include: childcare allowances, childcare voucher schemes; paid family, special or career leave, paid paternity leave; enhanced maternity leave and benefits; phased return from maternity leave; job sharing; flexible starting and finishing times; voluntary reduced-hours working; unpaid leave during school holidays; family access to learning resources; guaranteed Christmas leave for employees with families; and homeworking and teleworking arrangements. These arrangements are beneficial to employers because such policies tend to reduce absenteeism, reduce employee turnover, improve recruiting efforts, and improve employee morale and productivity. <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Copyright © 2007, The Ohio State University Some families try to create a balance by having one parent work from home. New technology has made it easier for some to work from home, which can allow workers the opportunity to have more control over and flexibility in their schedules. Referred to as teleworking, telecommuting, flexible work arrangements or flexiplace, this arrangement allows employees to perform "work away from the traditional centralized office environment. Modern technological advances have made it easier to work anytime, anywhere, and anyplace" (Shore, 1999, p. 1). Teleworking is an example of a move "away from a ‘face-time’ business culture to a ‘results-oriented’ business culture" (Hill, Märtinson, & Ferris, 2004, p. 291). <span style="font-family: Minion,Minion;"> <span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: justify;">Working from home allows parents the ability to: spend more time with children, spouses, friends, and family; participate in children’s school and extra-curricular activities; and enjoy hobbies. Parents can also arrange their schedules around children’s needs, such as doctor’s appointments. It also decreases the need for and cost of taking children to a babysitter. When employees work from home, they do not have to spend time or money commuting, which allows for more family time. However, teleworking can also have negative affects on the workers’ and their families’ lives. Cell phones, Blackberries, widespread Internet access, and other technological advances have created the possibility of a "24/7" workplace. It can be difficult to separate work time and family time when working from home. It is easy for the worker to slip away from family activities and work for hours when work is at home. Though some choose to work from home in an effort to reduce their work hours, they may work longer hours (Cullen et al., 2003). Family members may not understand that when the worker is working, he or she is not available for long personal conversations, just as they would not be available if they were working in a traditional office setting (Cullen et al., 2003). It is interesting to note the different reasons why men and women choose teleworking, according to Cullen et al. (2003): Studies have found that the motivation for teleworking is the same for men and women without children or with grown-up children. They wished to reduce commuting time, be able to work without interruptions and wished to make choices about when and where they worked. The motivation to telework for couples with younger children however, shows that there are significant gender differences. It would appear that women may choose to telework in order to achieve flexibility in coping with work and family and as a way to balance childcare, whereas men opt for telework to increase productivity, escape the environment of the corporate workplace and free themselves from conventional working hours. No matter what type of working arrangement employees and employers have, it is clear that many women today are striving to create a balance between work and family life through alternative working arrangements.