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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202/219- 6631.
With nearly one in five full-time workers -- more than 14
million Americans -- working non-standard hours, the scarcity of
round-the-clock child care is posing a serious problem for many families. A new
report and resource guide from the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of
Labor describes the growing need for child care during non-standard work hours
and profiles several innovative programs from around the country.
Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich and Women's Bureau
Director Karen Nussbaum released the report, CARE AROUND THE CLOCK: Developing
Child Care Resources Before Nine and After Five, today at Palcare, a child care
center near the San Francisco Airport that operates up to 24 hours a day.
According to CARE AROUND THE CLOCK, 7.2 million mothers,
with 11.7 million children under age 15, worked full- or part-time non-
standard hours in 1990, the most recent year with available. The number of
women, and men, working non-standard hours is expected to grow: the trend
toward a more service-based economy means more businesses are operating during
early mornings, nights and weekends. Service jobs have the highest and fastest
growing percentage of shift workers (42 percent), and most of these jobs are
held by women.
"Finding child care is difficult for many working
families," Reich said, "but it is particularly difficult for parents who work
non-standard hours. Right now, the mismatch between workers' fluid schedules
and available child care services is taking a toll on families and the economy.
We can and we must do better."
The Women's Bureau began exploring the issue of
non-standard hours child care when Nussbaum received reports from one Idaho
community that children were left sleeping in cars in a factory parking lot
while their parents worked late shifts. "Too many parents are worn thin by
make-shift arrangements and have to choose between quality child care and
keeping their jobs. CARE AROUND THE CLOCK is designed to encourage the
development of more child care services tailored to when parents really work,"
said Nussbaum.
The report offers steps that employers, communities and
parents can take to increase and improve child care options. It identifies
three general models for developing comprehensive, non-standard hours child
care: the single employer model; the employer consortium model; and the
community partnership model. Among the programs profiled in the report are:
- Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Georgetown, Kentucky: opened an
on-site, 24-hour child care center licensed for 230 children from six-weeks to
13-years old. The facility serves Toyota team workers who work in shifts and
often work overtime. The facility runs at capacity and usually has a waiting
list of approximately 90 families who need infant slots.
- Close to Home: a consortium of Phoenix-area employers including
Allstate, American Express Company, IBM and Motorola, among others. Close to
Home recruits and trains child care providers who accommodate non-standard
schedules. The consortium offers incentives and support services to create
child care facilities where the need is most pressing.
- Palcare: a non-profit organization formed by unions, employers,
community groups, and local government to address the child care needs of
workers at and around the San Francisco Airport. The Palcare Child Care Center
operates seven days a week and up to 24 hours a day, and allows parents to
change their child care schedules to meet their work schedules.
Nussbaum and Reich also attended a community forum on
child care issues in San Francisco last night -- the first in a series of
forums the Women's Bureau will hold around the country in the next few months.
The next forum will be in Portland, Oregon on May 15, and others will be held
in Boston, Rochester, Cleveland, Kansas City and elsewhere. At each forum, the
Women's Bureau is collecting pledges from employers, labor groups, advocates
and others to take steps to improve child care options in their community.
A recent Women's Bureau survey, Working Women Count!, asked
America's working women what they like and don't like about their jobs and what
they think needs to be changed. With more than a quarter of a million working
women responding, the number-one issue women said they wanted to bring to
President Clinton's attention is their difficulty balancing work and family.
More than half (56 percent) of women with children under age five said that
finding affordable child care is a serious problem. More than half (53 percent)
of this group said that "information about or support for child or dependent
care" is a high priority for change.
The Women's Bureau was established by Congress in 1920
with a mandate to "promote the welfare of wage earning women." Last month,
President Clinton accepted a set of 14 policy recommendations designed to
address the concerns women raised through Working Women Count! Among those
recommendations were the community forums on child care which began in San
Francisco yesterday.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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