A Slow Adjustment to Female Work Force : Few Companies Have Considered Impact of Pregnancy, Maternal, Paternal Leaves

NEW YORK —  Professionally and physiologically, her profile “says it all,” Felice N. Schwartz said of Ellen Futter. Not only is Futter president of Barnard College, Schwartz pointed out, but she is seven months pregnant.

“Unfortunately,” Schwartz said, Futter had had to be hospitalized abruptly and thus was unable to attend a recent symposium here on executive-level pregnancy.

And in a way, that said it all too.

For while more and more corporations nationally are including pregnancy, maternal health and paternal leave policies in their broad employee health and benefit programs, few are adequately planning for a phenomenon that is estimated to affect 85% of women during their working lives.

Changing Role of Women

“Society,” said Susan Schiffer Stautberg, author of “Pregnancy Nine to Five,” “has been slow to respond to the changing role of the American woman, her family and their many different needs.”

And Schwartz, founding president of the not-for-profit research group Catalyst, an organization dedicated to helping corporations and individuals develop career and family options, agreed.

“Today’s work force is totally different than it was a decade ago,” Schwartz told the gathering organized by Touche Ross, one of the “Big 8” accounting firms.

Discussing families where both parents are present, Schwartz said, “Today, only 11% of the work force are members of single-wage-earner families. The balance are two-career families.”

Further, Schwartz added, “By the end of the decade, more than half the work force will be female.”

Then, in answer to the title of a seminar titled “Pregnant Employees: Risk or Benefit,” Schwartz declared that “Catalyst’s view is that human resource policies that respond to today’s realities are not a risk. They are a sound investment.”

Many Executives Involved

Schwartz shook her head in disbelief: “It never ceases to amaze me that human resource policies are not at the top of the corporate agenda, but they’re not.”

Nearly 100 people had turned out for this early morning session, many of them executives from such concerns as Morgan Guaranty, Citibank, Monet Jewelers, Avon Products and McDonald’s. Most were female, and many fell into the 22-to-55 age bracket, 54% of whom are in the work force.

“That is where the talent is, that is where the whole thrust is,” Amory Houghton Jr., retired chairman and chief executive officer of Corning Glass, said of this burgeoning female work element.

Sometimes he finds it all quite astonishing, Houghton said: “The difficult thing for people like myself--I am 59 years old--is to learn. When I started to work in the early ‘50s, I mean, we didn’t have any women at Corning Glass.” Houghton smiled. “ ‘Course, that’s all changed.”

His own company has been a pioneer in adapting to a dual-career work body, he said, offering options such as flexible schedules and parental leave. Said Houghton: “Is there an inconsistency between turning a profit and supporting family life in the community? I don’t think there is.”

In his own company-town environment of Corning, N.Y., Houghton said, “We happen to live in a fishbowl. In microcosm, we are industrial America. Our little town is 12,500 people. It’s a total community. Men have got to be good fathers, and women have to be good mothers. It has to be a caring community.

No Entity Unaffected

“What we feel in our community is those policies which are consistent with those you are striving for are not theory. They are policies, and if they are not there, we die.”

Virtually no entity, public or private, is unaffected by the dual-career family, Houghton said. “We are talking about concern for the men, the women and the families and the different type of life they have now.”

While women have been pouring into the work force in great numbers for several decades now, only within the last six to eight years, said Schwartz, did women enter management in “significant numbers.” On the subject of pregnancy, the emergence of the female executive has left employer and employee alike in a mild state of chaos, Schwartz said.

“Without support from their employers,” she warned, “many of these women are going to drop out, or return to less important jobs.”

Or, as Susan Schiffer Stautberg wondered: “How many bright young women who scrambled halfway up the corporate ladder have slipped off the rungs into a pile of playthings and diapers because of conflicting home and work priorities? How many companies have lost their investments of money and time in top women because of anxiety and fatigue which come from overload and burnout?”

Pregnancy, said working mother Stautberg, “should not be an end to a woman’s career, but a starting point for revamped employment policies more responsive to the changing needs of the American family.”

The dilemma begins with a definition: As Stautberg notes, “Pregnancy is a condition, not a disease. Yet myths and stereotypes persist about pregnancy and pregnant workers.”

These stereotypes make for an automatic chill factor on the subject of employment and pregnancy. “These problems start,” Schwartz said, “when a woman wonders how she is going to announce to her boss that she is pregnant.”

In a major national study of parental leave policies, Schwartz said, Catalyst determined that “the corporate community is aware--they know that this is an issue that has come of age.” But after that comes the uncertainty: “They want to know how other companies are handling it, and how they can adapt.”

The same study, Schwartz said, revealed, among other things, that “women want six to eight weeks of disability, with a guaranteed job on their return.” Catalyst found also that “women want from three to six months of unpaid leave following disability.” In the companies studied, Schwartz said, “the women take on an average three months’ leave.” About half the companies offered this option as a matter of policy.

But many do not. While 75 countries offer “some form of paid maternity leave and job protection,” Stautberg said, disability insurance that covers pregnancy is not mandatory in the United States. Sixty percent of American women, Stautberg said, are not covered.

Schwartz’s study showed also that “women want to return to work part time” for perhaps a month or so following their return from parental leave. But “only a small handful of companies have policies that enable this kind of gradual transition,” Schwartz said.

This seems unfortunate, Schwartz said, because “it makes financial sense to give mothers and fathers time to adjust to the commanding presence of this new child.”

The study found that “women would like new fathers to have two weeks of unpaid leave in addition to their vacation,” Schwartz said. “The reality is that not all men take that leave, and we tend to perceive those who do as wimps.”

Not Collecting Data

Perhaps most troubling, Schwartz said that “companies are not collecting data on how many women take parental leave, how many drop out, how many return to their jobs down the line.”

Schwartz said she found the lack of focus on this issue rather alarming. “To do something for all these pregnant women,” she said, “is not an impossible task.”

On the contrary, “an explicit, complete parental leave policy can reduce attrition and enhance recruitment.

“It is not a foolish risk,” she said. “It is an important investment to invest in the retention of employees once they start to build families.”

Obviously, as Stautberg observed, pregnancy and employment are a two-way street. Certain steps are as much the responsibility of the employee as of the employer.

For one thing, she advised, “investigate your maternity benefits and leave options so that there are no surprises and you can draw up a practical plan for integrating pregnancy into your career.”

And, she suggested, “study your job from every angle to see what adjustments you will need to make to accommodate your pregnancy.”

Stautberg also emphasized the pregnant employee’s attitude: “If you consider yourself a person on the job who happens to be pregnant, rather than a pregnant woman who happens to have a job, other people will get the message and turn their attention to your work instead of your waistline.”

As for how companies can be motivated to place a higher priority on parental care options, Houghton said he saw but one major incentive.

“Abject fear,” he said. “There is no alternative, absolutely no alternative.”

Under the pressure of reality, Houghton said, “we are just going to have to develop sufficiently flexible, understanding policies, just like we do with anything else.”

But Schwartz said also that companies could move gradually with measures that will enhance employee morale and confidence with virtually no cost or down side to the organization.

“A simple thing like a parenting seminar at lunchtime,” she said, “for the parent, let’s say, of teen-age kids. Each one thinks he is the only one who has a problem, and he finds out every one else has the same problem.

“What does that do? It’s cost effective because it allays anxiety.”

Since 1982, Stautberg reported, the number of companies providing “some form of child-care assistance” has tripled--to nearly 2,000. These companies have found, she said, “that these benefits help recruit and keep valuable workers and lessen absenteeism.”

But such thinking has yet to permeate the majority of corporate America, Stautberg lamented. Employment policies are due for major restructuring, she suggested, to “recognize the dual financial and nurturing responsibilities of today’s parents.”

Said Stautberg: “The answer is not in special privileges, but in an end to special punishments.”