7 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 Exploring Dependent Care, Work, and Family As higher percentages of employees with primary responsibility for the care of children and adults needing special assistance entered the workforce in the 1970s and beyond, research initiatives explored the ways in which they managed work, family, and dependent care responsibilities. Employee surveys of work and family issues were the medium for at least three decades of Portland State research that took place from 1982 to 2000 (and beyond) in several separate projects or stages of development. Two early employee surveys were for Kaiser Permanente in Portland and the Greater Washington Research Center in Washington, D.C.: When Parents Are at Work: A Three-Company Survey of How Employed Parents Arrange Child Care (1982). This opportunity was made possible by Atlee E. Shidler, president of the Greater Washington Research Center. Atlee was assisted by Joan Maxwell, and I by Paul Koren. Our project initiated a return to research on childcare, work, and family issues—research based on employee surveys. The method provided detailed demographic data from the entire workforce, thus allowing comparison of employees having diverse jobs, incomes, difficulties, and family responsibilities. All of this research was done in partnership with my PSU colleagues Paul Koren and Katie Schultze. In 1983, at the Regional Research Institute, we received a generous grant called “Employer-Based Child Care Information and Referral.” Ironically, we enjoyed the support of the Reagan White House, which wanted to shift childcare financing away from government onto the corporate sector. This grant supported an employee survey of more than 8,100 employees of 33 corporate and agency employers. The 1984 report to employers on the findings, Hard to Find and Difficult to Manage: The Effects of Child Care on the Workplace, launched a methodology and established our reputation for continuing work with employers. The report that Paul and I wrote, with a marvelous series of tables and original findings, put us on the map— both with employers and with scholars in the emerging field of Work and Family. A confirming replication survey of 21 employers and 8,083 employees was conducted in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1985, in collaboration with Sue Vartuli of the University of Missouri, and administered by Kyle Matchell, Sarah Hendrix, and Carol Scott of the Metropolitan Council on Child Care, at the Mid-America Regional Council. For her Ph.D. at Harvard, Pia Divine (Patricia Divine-Hawkins) used our data for a study of employees whose children were reported as looking after themselves, which was a source of higher time missed from the job. Pia’s dissertation, Latchkey in Context: Family, Community, and Self/Sib Arrangements for the Care of School-Age Children, was approved by the Harvard University School of Education in 1992. Pia’s doctoral committee consisted of Bob LeVine, Dick Light, and me. Another major initiative at PSU was the study of work and elder care from 1986 through 1989 directed by Margaret Neal from the Institute on Aging. Our format for employee surveys was expanded to include employees with either elder care, child care, or both (the Sandwich Generation). This broader focus on dependent care produced an excellent book: Balancing Work and Caregiving for Children, Adults, and Elders by Margaret Neal, Nancy Chapman, Berit IngersollDayton, and Arthur Emlen (Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, 1993). Finally, our PSU team conducted major dependent care surveys for individual employers: Good Samaritan Hospital & Medical Center (1985); Chemeketa Community College (1986); Boys and Girls Club of Escondido, California (1986-87); employees of Sisters of Providence in all 20 of their hospitals from Alaska to Burbank (1987); Bonneville Power (1988); Tri-Met (1989); and US Bancorp (1989-90). —Art Emlen Note: The RAPS Historical Preservation Committee has edited this article. The full text is available in the Portland State University Archives. PAST TENSE: Looking back at PSU’s early history Cynthia D. Stowell photo Art Emlen
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