FAMILY MEDICAL LEAVE ACT

Family Medical Leave Act



Family Medical Leave Act

Introduction

The United States has experienced great changes in the workplace throughout its history. That change is concerning to the change in traditional families and the values of each American. The increase of women in the workforce is one of the largest social changes our nation has seen is the last 20th century. Another change within our society worth mentioning is the fact that a considerable proportion of the workforce is caring for older relatives. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000), there were 3.9 million family households who were caring for aging relatives as of 2000. Furthermore, 45 to 55% of working adults are expected to assume the primary caretaking role for aging relatives in the next five years.

It is no wonder that the study of work-family conflict grew so widely popular within the last century. It is suggested that whenever work or family life becomes the central focus of one's life, work-family conflict will intensify. Over the years, Americans have witnessed the government step in and try to dilute some of the tension created by work-family conflict. Some researchers argue changes in the workplace have occurred so rapidly that employment policies have fallen behind in addressin8 these changes.

Description and Analysis

America is one of the most industrialized countries in the world, yet one of the last to implement a family leave policy to accommodate for the stress of balancing work and a family. The FMLA was created to provide job security for employees who had to leave work to take care of an ill family member, newly born child, or for their own personal illness, FMLA was believed to be a liberator for employees who wanted any kind of a family life. The FMLA has been evaluated twice by the Department of Labor, once in 1996 and again in 2000. Waldfogel (2001) analyzed the results of both reports. The results from the 1996 report indicated the cost associated with the leave policy were minimal. This means, the FMLA was easy to administer, and no noticeable effects on business performance have been reported. However, 41.9% of employees who were covered with the law were unaware of it. Another compelling finding was that even though nearly 15 million employees utilized the leave between 1993 and 1995, 3% of employees who needed leave did not take it (Waldfogel, 2001).

The main reason employees chose not to take the leave was because they simply could not afford to not work. By the time the second report was conducted in 2000, word of the FMLA had spread throughout the workforce. As expected more employees knew about the law, but a devastating number of them reported not knowing if the law pertained to them. In the 2000 survey, it was reported the percentage of employers who found it easy to comply with the law had dropped from 85.1% 1063.6%. Waldfogel found employers reported more difficulty in 2000 with maintaining ...