Book Description
A 1988 symposium on the effect of family problems on the corporate bottom line and a review of more than 80 other studies have confirmed that business investments in programs and policies to resolve family-work conflicts yield returns. Family issues/problems have been documented to affect employee recruitment, productivity, turnover, and absenteeism. Job factors such as time elements, job demands, and work environment and family factors such as marital relationship, spouse support, spouse employment, and division of labor have all been found to affect different employees in different ways depending on the given employee's sex, occupational status and income group, and employment status (full- versus part-time status). Included among the specific family problems that have been found to affect employee productivity are stress, pregnancy, child care, and elder care. Employee-sponsored child care centers, parental leave, flextime, and employee assistance programs have all been demonstrated to reduce employee turnover. Companies may not want to conduct research on work-family issues because of its cost and complexity. Such research is valuable, however, because it can help identify the most effective responses to family-work issues/problems. Directions for future research on work-family issues include the following: interdisciplinary, holistic, comparative, longitudinal, interactive, and visionary research studies. (MN)
