Dependent care and related benefits - Data Watch

Business & Health, May, 1991

As the workforce grows more diverse, employers are trying to accommodate employees with a variety of needs, such as time off for mothers and fathers who want to be with newborns, and for sons and daughters who need to take care of aging parents. This month's "Data Watch" focuses on dependent care benefits and other programs employers are offering to help their workers.

Many employers are now offering some form of parental leave. According to a 1990 survey of 837 employers by Hewitt Associates, a Lincolnshire, Ill., consulting firm, 41% of employers offer unpaid parental leave, while another 2% offer a paid parental leave benefit. However, the majority of respondents--54%--offer no parental leave program.

Of those employers that offer unpaid parental leave, a sizable number--23%--offer 12 weeks' leave, followed closely by those who offer 26 weeks (18%). Sixteen percent say the number of weeks offered is determined "at management's discretion."

Most employers who offer parental leave--72%--continue to subsidize health benefits during the leave period.

In addition to parental leave, employers are beginning to offer one or more other programs to make life easier for working parents, the study notes. Seventy-six percent offer flexible scheduling; 65%, part-time work; 31%, job-sharing; 23%, compressed work schedules; and 15%, work-at-home programs.

Other popular dependent-related programs include dependent care spending accounts and resource and referral services.