#66: the economics of work-life conflict
this month's book recc: Heather Boushey's "Finding Time"
Good morning,
Today’s note is a quick one, rounding out this month’s theme of work-life tensions with a book recommendation.
If you missed the earlier issues, here is a recap:
📝 writer’s note: how I’m thinking about leaning into creative practices by learning through the world of work
🌌 constellation: readings on the many emotions that go into the choice to become parents
💡prompt: how might we better answer the question “what do you do?”
📕 reader’s note: see below!
This one has been on my list for a while, but I finally dug into Heather Boushey’s Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict (Harvard University Press, 2016). Boushey currently serves on Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors. Prior to that she was President and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
Note: Finding Time isn’t her latest book (see here for her 2019 book on inequality and related NYT coverage, which is also great) but the one I was most interested in. It was written pre-pandemic, so would be fascinating to see her updated take. But still, this was so valuable.
The Book:
I first learned about Boushey’s work during my time working at IAFFE, and saved Finding Time to read because her take immediately fascinated me. Here’s the publisher’s summary:
Employers today are demanding more and more of employees’ time. And from campaign barbecues to the blogosphere, workers across the United States are raising the same worried question: How can I get ahead at my job while making sure my family doesn’t fall behind?
Heather Boushey argues that resolving work-life conflicts is as vital for individuals and families as it is essential for realizing the country’s productive potential. The federal government, however, largely ignores the connection between individual work-life conflicts and more sustainable economic growth. The consequence: business and government treat the most important things in life—health, children, elders—as matters for workers to care about entirely on their own time and dime. That might have worked in the past, but only thanks to a hidden subsidy: the American Wife, a behind-the-scenes, stay-at-home fixer of what economists call market failures. When women left the home—out of desire and necessity—the old system fell apart. Families and the larger economy have yet to recover.
But change is possible. Finding Time presents detailed innovations to help Americans find the time they need and help businesses attract more productive workers. A policy wonk with working-class roots and a deep understanding of the stresses faced by families up and down the income ladder, Heather Boushey demonstrates with clarity and compassion that economic efficiency and equity do not have to be enemies. They can be reconciled if we have the vision to forge a new social contract for business, government, and private citizens.
What stood out to me:
First, Boushey’s contribution to the discussion about work-life conflict (which she’s very careful not to frame as work-family conflict because such framing has been used to keep it as a women’s issue, rather than an economic issue that affects everyone), is refreshing because it’s as accessible as a lot of the literature out there on the unsustainability of work-life obligations, but it presents the economic arguments for it rather than leaving care policies in the realm of values… which is something America has struggled with forever. Case in point: Nixon strategically pushed what could have been an incredible federal investment into a values debate when he vetoed a 1971 bill (passed in both the House and Senate!) that would have established a network of nationally funded, locally administered, comprehensive child-care centers that could provide high-quality education, nutrition and medical services, portraying it as “antifamily.”
But the book also expands the discourse on work-life issues beyond parenting, including caregiving more broadly, as well as the positive economic impact sound work-life policies (like the right to accrue sick leave or have caregiver leave for both birth and illness for all workers across the income ladder) have had on increasing productive labor and stabilizing demand—features of economic growth that are as important as supply-side factors.
In the words of her husband, also an economist and self-described “difficult audience” given his lack of interest in social policies and children:
For the childless among us, work-life issues have historically been something that affected other people – that coworker that had to leave early to pick up a kid, or that sibling that took maternity leave. Heather makes a compelling case that the management of time is a pressing problem for the health and productivity of the economy as a whole.
How does she do this? In her own words:
My contribution to this scholarship is to show that family’s loss of time to care is as much an economic issue as a challenge for individual households. As such, fixing the problem requires macrolevel thinking—indeed, nothing less than a rethinking of the social contract between governments, firms, and families.
I didn’t just stumble into this research project. For the past fifteen years, I’ve worked in Washington, DC, alongside a dedicated group of thinkers and doers. I’ve talked to members of Congress, governors and mayors, policy and economics experts, as well as union leaders and workers’ advocates. And I’ve engaged with business leaders who understand the importance of work-life reforms to our economy’s performance.
I learned that we need practical solutions, ones that are good for the economy overall. To this end, the solutions in this book aren’t just pie-in-the-sky ideas. Every single one of them has already been put into place somewhere in the United States. In the past decade, over two dozen states and localities have passed laws giving workers the right to earn paid sick days; four states have passed laws for paid parental leave; two localities have passed laws that give workers the right to ask their employer for a schedule that works for them and their family; many communities have put in place new programs to address the need for care for children and the elderly; and two states have made it illegal to discriminate against those with care responsibilities. The advantage to pulling together a list of ideas with a solid track record—as I do in the book—is that policymakers can see the likely effects of a reform.
These successes show that Americans are ready—and eager—for change. When I came to Washington, DC, in 2000, I would have had to write a book that looked to other countries for solutions. That is no longer true today, and this is the best evidence that the momentum for change is building.
Bookshop link: Finding Time: The Economics of Work-Life Conflict
Related resources:
Heather Boushey’s Finding Time Drops the Mic on Work-Life Conflict (Vogue, 2016)
Book Talk at Google (2016)
Interactive: The changing economics of the American family (Washington Center for Equitable Growth, 2016)
Home Economics (Dissent, 2016)
We’ll dig into a new theme next month!
Happy Tuesday,
Jihii