Corporate family policies in United States organizations, 1965--1997

Why do organizations provide family leaves and child care benefits for their employees? I use a new survey of 389 U.S. organizations to trace the adoption of these corporate family policies. These policies have the potential to reduce gender inequality and improve the well-being of workers with family responsibilities.; Previous research explains family benefits by looking to labor market conditions, the demands and leverage of workers, and management's efforts to control workers. I argue that other studies neglect the role of the state in shaping corporate family policies. This is partly because these studies use cross-sectional data that make it difficult to examine the effects of different legal and normative environments. Using survey data that includes the date that policies were adopted, I show how the federal government and interested professionals promoted corporate family policies through legal mandates, tax incentives, and normative pressures. I also find that tight labor markets encourage organizations to adopt cheap family policies and that these benefits are more likely to be found in organizations employing high-status workers.; This research extends neo-institutional theory by studying two legal changes---the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and tax incentives for employer-sponsored child care---that are quite different from the broad, ambiguous civil rights law that has been the subject of earlier studies. This research also clarifies the role of professionals in constructing responses to legal changes.; Despite its clarity and simplicity, the FMLA does not produce uniform leave policies or universal compliance. Furthermore, human resources managers resisted the FMLA, preferring to maintain their discretion over family leaves. These findings illustrate the variation in employers' response to even simple legal requirements.; The most common child care program, the dependent care expense account, was created by benefits consultants as a cheap response to new tax law. Guided by benefits consultants, organizations have adopted this program as an easy and inexpensive way to signal their "family-friendliness." These findings confirm the neo-institutional conclusion that there is an iterative process by which organizations and the state determine what a law requires or allows and then institutionalize certain responses to those laws.