Paula M. Rayman

Work and Family: Research Informing Policy

PART ONE: SETTING THE STAGE Work and Family in Womens Lives in the German Democratic Republic - H Trapp Public Opinion and Congressional Action on Work, Family and Gender - P Burstein and S Wierzbicki PART TWO: THE JUGGLING ACT Do Americans Feel Overworked? Comparing Ideal and Actual Working Time - J A Jacobs and K Gerson Nonstandard Employment Schedules among American Mothers - A G Cox and H B Presser The Relevance of the Marital Stature Effects of Public and Private Policies on Working after Childbirth - S Hofferth Returning to Work - J C Sandberg and D B Cornfield The Impact of Gender, Family and Work on Terminating a Family or Medical Leave PART THREE: LATER IN THE LIFE COURSE The Effects of Parental Work and Maternal Nonemployment on Childrens Reading and Math Achievement - T L Parcel, R A Nickoll and M J Dufur Work-Family Orientations and Attainments in the Early Life Course - M K Johnson and J T Mortimer Transmission of Family Values, Work and Welfare among Poor Urban Black Women - R Iverson and N Farber

Designing organizational solutions to integrate work and life

In September 1996, Fleet Financial Group and the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute undertook a one‐year pilot project addressing a “dual agenda” – reexamining work processes to achieve positive business outcomes while also helping employees better integrate work responsibilities with life outside of work. The chosen sites for the experiments were a retail/small business banking unit and a portfolio management unit. Radcliffe‐Fleet Project researchers employed two key methods: dual context and action research. Using this methodology, interventions and measures of success of the interventions were developed collaboratively with management and employees. Even in these competitive, deadline‐driven work environments, quantitative measures and qualitative assessments at each site showed a positive relationship between business outcomes and quality of life outcomes. The researchers develop guidelines for companies interested in replication of this project. Several principles are also identified for sustaining the success of effective work‐life integration interventions and institutionalizing the “dual agenda” in the workplace.

Creating a Research and Public Policy Agenda for Work, Family, and Community

In the last decades, there has been considerable effort from researchers and public policymakers to set an agenda for the United States on work, family, and community issues. There has been movement in both research and public policy to connect work and family perspectives, and, more recently, community contexts have been recognized as well. However, current research and public policy models have been limited by a number of deficiencies that prevent them from developing and implementing an agenda that has the capacity to move our nation forward to meet the challenges that lie ahead. In addition, there is little direct connection between the findings from current research and the content of new public policies. This article will review existing work, family, and community research and public policy in terms of prevailing strengths and deficiencies and then set forth possibilities for a future agenda.

Reaching for Success in Science: Women's Uneven Journey

T marks the 25th anniversary of the first conference on women and science sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences. Like most birthdays, it is a time of celebration, a time of reflection, and a time of projection. To give this occasion and the women and men who made it possible the respect they deserve, we can certainly celebrate the successes that women have made in the field of science, but we must also reflect on where we are and where we are going. In many ways the path of women in science reflects the path of the women’s movement itself. French feminist Julia Kristeva describes the feminist struggle as a three-tiered evolutionary process. In the first tier, women push for equal access to areas previously open only to men. Twenty-five years ago, underrepresentation in all areas of science was a given, and many women, including some of the organizers of the New York Academy of Sciences conference that we are today recognizing, sought to make equal access a reality. According to National Science Foundation data, before 1972, women accounted for fewer than 10% of those majoring in physical sciences and less than 20% of those majoring in mathematical sciences. On a graduate level, that lack of access was even more limited. Figures from the National Science Board indicate that, except in the social sciences, doctoral degrees to women in all fields of science—engineering, life sciences, mathematics, and physical sciences—accounted for fewer than 17% of the total number of doctoral degrees granted. By 1973, only 8.7% of the doctoral scientists and engineers were women. In 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments, an outgrowth of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, was passed. This act, as well as other important administrative and legislative acts such as the Higher Education Affirmative Action Guidelines of 1972, provided the legal framework for equal access and assured that women could, at least on paper, have access to all areas of education. Title IX appeared to open the magic door through which women would enter science in equal proportions to men, and it ushered in the first phase of the women’s movement in science and in many other fields. By 1980, that door had swung completely open, at least legally, with the Science and Engineering Equal Opportunities Act that declared:

Co-operative Movement Confronts Centralization: Israeli Kibbutz Regional Organizations

Co-operative movements, collectives and alternative institutions existing within a larger environment of opposing values have limited success in maintaining egalitarian and co-operative practices. When these collectives attempt to form centralized organizations they confront patterns of bureaucratization and stratification common to the institutions of the dominant society. Theoretical issues of the inevitability of increasing organizational hierarchy, standardization and routinization are addressed in the study of three kibbutz regional institutions. Based on fieldwork conducted in the 1970s, the study indicates that regional advances have caused conflicts for kibbutz social structure. The co-operative system will never transform capitalist society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general condition of society... K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1