Questions and Answers about Family Leave:

A Sloan Work and Family Research Network Fact Sheet

Introduction

The Sloan Work and Family Research Network has prepared Fact Sheets which provide statistical answers to some
important questions about work-family and work/life issues. This Fact Sheet includes statistics about Family Leave.
(Last updated: December 2006.)

Which employees know about family leave?

Fact 1 “…workers with higher wages and more job experience demonstrate greater awareness of family
leave” (Baird & Reynolds, 2004, p. 342).

Fact 2 “…married men are significantly less likely to know about family leave than men who are not
married, a difference in odds of about 32 percent” (Baird & Reynolds, 2004, p. 339).

Fact 3 “If women had family situations and work situations like those of men, they would still be over five
times more likely than men to know about leave benefits” (Baird & Reynolds, 2004, p. 340-41).

Which employees use family leave?

Fact 1 “Job protected leave for a male employee to care for a child jumped from 41% in 1992 to 77% in
1997” (Dorman, 2001, p.196).

Fact 2 “…household income was negatively related to leave-taking (among California transit workers' union
members). Among women from households with less than $40,000 annual income, 83% took leaves (15 out of
18), as compared with only 44% of women from higher-income households (7 out of 16)” (Grosswald &
Scharach, 1999, p. 195).

Why do employees take family leave?

1
 Fact 1 “Whereas the majority of leaves are to care for oneself (64%), slightly more than one third (36%) are
taken to care for other people-most often children (22%, including 14% for births and adoptions and 8% for a
child’s illness) but also parents (7%), spouses (3%), or some other relative (4%)” (Gerstel & McGonagle, 1999, p.
522).

Fact 2 According to the Baltimore Parenthood Study, "Of the 42 percent [of parents] who were able to stay
at home with their sick children, more than half said they could do so because they received some type of paid
leave. Twenty-nine percent used paid vacation or personal days, 14 percent used paid leave designed to allow
them to care for sick family members, and 11 percent used their own paid sick leave; 11 percent took unpaid
leave; and 7 percent used flexible working hours" (Heymann, 2000, p.58).

Fact 3 In a study of working parents, 42% of sample participants cared for their children when they were
sick, while 58% continued to work. Parents who cared for their children reported they could do so because of
paid leave policies within their workplace: “29% were able to use paid vacation and personal days, 14% received
paid leave to care for sick family members, and 11% were able to use their own paid sick leave” (Heymann,
Toomey, & Furstenberg, 1999, p. 872).

Why don’t employees take family leave?

Fact 1 “In the 2000 survey (2000 Survey of Employees), the most commonly noted reason for not taking
leave was being unable to afford it, reported by 77.6 percent of leave-needers. Many leave-needers also feared
that their work or careers would suffer if they took leave: About half (52.6%) indicated that their work was too
important; 42.6 percent said their job advancement would have been hurt; and 27.8 percent reported that they
did not want to lose seniority. About a third of leave-needers (31.9%) said that their job might have been lost
had they taken leave, and 20.8 percent reported that their employer denied their request” (Cantor et al., 2001, p.
2-16).

Fact 2 While researching paid and unpaid leave benefits of global working families, Heymann found that
“parents who lacked support at home and at work were more likely to have to leave a school-age child home
alone. Eighty percent of single and married parents who had no paid leave, no other caregivers in the household,
and no regular family support had left a school-age child home alone compared to 45 percent of other parents.
Eighty-eight percent of parents who were single, had no paid leave, and did not have other caregivers in the
house had left a school-age child home alone compared to 47 percent of other parents” (Heymann, 2006, p. 51).

Which employees receive paid family leave?

Fact 1 “Paid leave sick plans (formal or informal) evidenced a positive change from 1992 to 1997 with an
increase from 70 to 81%” (Dorman, 2001, p.196).

Fact 2 “The presence of ‘both benefits’ (paid sick leave and disability insurance) increased from 28% in 1981
to 43% in 1997 while ‘disability insurance only’ declined from 17% to six percentage over the same time frame
and those reporting neither benefit decreased from 20% to 13%” (Dorman, 2001, p.193).

2
 Fact 3 Thirty seven and a half percent of women and 29.6% of men did not receive pay during their longest
leave between 1995 and 2000. (Cantor et al., 2001, p. 22)

Fact 4 According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, “...employed mothers were significantly less
likely than fathers to have paid leave they could take to care for family members” (Heymann, 2000, p.152).

Fact 5 Among employers that offer at least some maternity leave, 46% offer at least some replacement pay
for women during the period of maternity-related disability, excluding paid vacation and sick time. (Bond,
Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 14)

Fact 6 Among employers that offer at least some paternity leave, 14% offer at least some replacement pay
for new fathers, excluding paid vacation and sick time. (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 14)

What are the benefits of family leave?

Fact 1 “A large majority of leave takers said that taking leave had positive effects on their ability to care for
family members (78.7%), their own or family members' emotional well-being (70.1%), and their own or family
members' physical health (63.0%)” (Waldfogel, 2001, p. 20).

Fact 2 “Among those who cited positive effects on health, a large majority said that taking leave made it
easier for them to comply with doctors' instructions (93.5%) and led to a quicker recovery period (83.7%)”
(Waldfogel, 2001, p. 20).

Fact 3 “…longer paternity leaves were related to a planned pregnancy, better employer’s reaction to
childbirth, more preoccupation with the infant, and higher family salience” (Feldman, Sussman, & Zigler, 2004, p.
469).

Fact 4 “…high SES (socio-economic status) mothers who took longer leaves adapted better to work
compared to high SES mothers who took shorter leaves” (Feldman, Sussman, & Zigler, 2004, p. 472-473).

What is the rate of return to one’s position after family leave?

Fact 1 “…the guarantee of the same or comparable job on return (from leave) reflects a significant change
from the 1992 level of 74% to 90% in 1997. However, the guarantee of maintaining seniority while on leave
declined from 97% in 1992 to 85% in 1997” (Dorman, 2001, p. 196).

Fact 2 “The provision of job-protected maternity leave was common among the respondents. The data
reflect an increased level of job-protected maternity leave among both Medium and Large Size employers, rising
from the 80% range in 1992-1993 to 90% plus in 1998” (Dorman, 2002, p. 460).

Fact 3 ”Ninety-five percent of the leave-takers (among California transit workers’ union members) returned
to the same job following their leave” (Grosswald & Scharach, 1999, p.197).

3
 Fact 4 “Of the respondents (human resource directors at colleges and universities), 84.3 percent, or 43,
indicated faculty/staff who took family leave returned to the same position, and 15.7 percent, or 8, indicated
they did not. For those who did not return to the same position, 5 indicated they returned to an equivalent
position, 1 did not, and 1 did not know” (Campion & Dill, 2000, p. 149).

Fact 5 “…of the reported 189 faculty who used family leave, 3.2 percent, or 6, did not return. Of the
reported 404 staff who used family leave, 9.9 percent, or 40, did not return. In both cases those individuals not
returning constituted a rather small number” (Campion & Dill, 2000, p. 150).

Which companies provide family leave benefits?

Fact 1 “Larger companies are more likely than their smaller counterparts to provide...longer maternity
leaves, paternity leaves, and leaves for adoptive parents” (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 11).

Fact 2 Thirteen percent of companies offer replacement pay during paternity leave. (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, &
Brownfield, 2005, p. 12)

Fact 3 According to the 2005 NSE, "small employers [those with 50-99 employees nationwide] are
significantly less likely- 31 percent- to provide at least 12 weeks of family and medical leave than [medium and
large employers" (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 10).

How and why do companies fund their employees’ leave benefits?

Fact 1 “Of companies providing at least some pay to women during their period of disability, most (75%)
fund this pay through a temporary disability insurance plan (TDI) plan, which typically provides partial wage
replacement during the period of maternity-related disability” (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 12).

Fact 2 According to the 2005 NSE, of the, "92 percent of employers that have at least eight work life
initiatives (such as flexible work schedules, family leave, child care or elder care assistance)…47% report
providing these initiatives to recruit and retain employees and another 25% provide these initiatives to enhance
productivity and commitment" (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 1).

The Network has additional resources related to this topic.

1. Our database of academic literature contains the citations and annotations of literature related to the issue of
Family Leave. You can connect to this database at:
http://library.bc.edu/F?func=find-b-0&local_base=BCL_WF

References

4
Baird, C.L., & Reynolds, J.R. (2004). Employee awareness of family leave benefits: The effects of family, work, and gender. The
Sociological Quarterly, 45(2), 325-353.

“The analyses use data from the young women’s and young men’s cohorts of the (1996) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a nationally
representative sample…The sample is limited to employees who should be covered under the FMLA according to Public Law 103-03 (1993)…The final
sample consists of 1,333 women and 1,441 men for a total sample size of 2,774” (pp. 333-334).

Bond, J., Galinsky, E., Kim, S., & Brownfield, E. (2005). National study of employers. New York, NY: Families and Work Institute.

This study was designed to build on the 1998 Business Work-Life Study and therefore provides data on changes that have occurred over the last 7
years. "The 2005 NSE sample included 1,092 employers with 50 or more employees - 66 percent are for-profit companies and 34 percent are
nonprofit organizations; 44 percent operate at only one location, while 56 percent have operations at more than one location...(The survey was
conducted) using telephone interviews with human resource directors. Harris Interactive staff conducted the interviews from September 23, 2004 to
April 5, 2005. Employers were selected from Dun & Bradstreet lists, using a stratified random sampling procedure in which selection was proportional
to the number of people employed by each company to ensure a large enough sample of large organizations. The response rate was 38 percent,
based on the percentage of all companies on the call-list that completed interviews." (Bond, Galinsky, Kim, & Brownfield, 2005, p. 1)

Campion, W.J., & Dill, J.C. (2000). An investigation of the impact on higher education of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.
Public Personnel Management, 29 (1), 147-156.

“This project surveyed human resource directors at selected two-year and four-year higher education institutions in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and
Louisiana to see what effect the FMLA produced in it's first four years...Over 50 institutions participated in the project. Approximately 42 percent of
those surveyed were community colleges, and 58 percent were universities, both public and private. Research materials covered topics that reviewed
the requirements and impact of the law, the compliance (or noncompliance) of employers, common problems and possible penalties, and the benefits
and actual use (or fear of use) by employees” (p. 147, 148).

Cantor, D., Waldfogel, J., Kirwin, J., McKinley Wright, M., Levin, K., Rauch, J., Hagerty, T., & Stapleton Kudela, M. (2001). Balancing
the needs of families and employers: Family and medical leave surveys, 2000 update. Rockville, MD: Westat.

Dorman, P. (2001). Maternity and family leave policies: A comparative analysis. The Social Science Journal, 38(2), 189-201.

“In 1992, I used a nonrandom sample drawn from The Greater Boise Employer Directory 1991, to survey 223 employers located in either Ada or
Canyon county in Idaho. That survey resulted in a return of 145 completed Maternity Leave Benefits surveys from a two-county area that represented
nearly two-thirds of the state’s total employment. In 1997, following the same procedure, I revisited the sample of respondents from the 1992
survey…I selected key questions to allow comparisons with the 1981 Columbia study, 1992 and 1997 two county Idaho study…data from 1992
(N=145) and 1997 (N=101)” (p. 191).

Dorman, P. (2002). FMLA, PDA, and maternity leave in Idaho: A comparison of survey data 1992-1993 and 1998. The Soci al Science
Journal, 39(3), 451-464.

“The first data base was gathered in 1992, prior to enactment of FMLA and consisted of a two-county sample…the sample included 223 employers
who were listed in the Greater Boise Employer Directory 1991, which primarily included employers located in Ada and Canyon counties. There were
144 survey responses… The second set of data…was gathered in the fall of 1993 from a randomly drawn state-wide sample of 372 employers, which
resulted in 101 responses...1998…the sample originally surveyed in 1992 was revisited to assess changes over the period in the same leave variables
included in the 1992 survey…resulting sample of 220 employers…A second sample of 439 was randomly drawn by the staff of American Business
Information, Inc., from their data base of Idaho employers…186 responded…data from 1992 to 1993 were merged as a ‘pre-FMLA’ and the combined
data was used for longitudinal comparison of the same variables in the combined 1998 ‘post-FMLA’ survey” (p. 453).

5
Feldman, R., Sussman, A.L., & Zigler, E. (2004). Parental leave and work adaptation at the transition to parenthood: Individual,
marital, and social correlates. Applied Developmental Psychology, 25(4), 459-479.

“The participant pool was derived from a birth record database containing the names of families with children born in the New Haven area between
April 1996 and February 1998…Ninety-eight dual-earner mothers and fathers whose firstborn child was between 3 and 5 months old participated in
the study…To participate, the mother had to be employed prior to childbirth, take a period of maternity leave, and resume employment by the time of
the survey.” (p. 466 and 463)

Gerstel, N., & McGonagle, K. (1999). Job leaves and the limits of the family and medical leave act: The effects of gender, race, and
family. Work and Occupations, 26(4), 510-534.

Data was collected from a national survey conducted by the Congressional Commission on the Family and Medical Leave Act using telephone
interviews, yielding a sample size of 2,253 respondents for this study.

Grosswald, B., & Scharach, A.E. (1999). Employee experiences with Family and Medical Leave study. Community, Work, & Family,
2(2), 187-203.

“Survey questionnaires were mailed in April 1995, to 500 female members of the (California) transit workers’ union…Only women were surveyed
because women generally are the primary caregivers of children and parents. Therefore, their perceived need for family leave may be higher than that
of their male counterparts…the respondents were mostly African American, age 40 and older, with some college education, having annual household
incomes above $40,000, married, and employed as bus drivers.” Sample size was 91. (pp. 192-193)

Heymann, J. (2000). The widening gap : Why America's working families are in jeopardy-- and what can be done about it. New York,
NY: Basic Books.

"Begun in 1966, the Baltimore Parenthood Study has evaluated teenage mothers, their children, and their grandchildren over the past 30 years. The
latest wave of data collection occurred in 1995. We collected data on the experience of the third generation, who were aged 26 to 29 years in 1995
and had children aged 10 years or younger... These young parents were asked a series of questions that were developed specifically to examine what
factors facilitated their ability to care for their children when they became sick." (Heymann et al., 1999, p.871) Heymann, S.J., Toomey, S.T., &
Furstenberg, F. (1999) Working parents: What factors are involved in their ability to take time off from work when their children are sick? Archives of
Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 153(8), 870-874.

Heymann, J. (2006). Forgotten families: Ending the growing crisis confronting children and working parents in the global economy.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Forgotten Families reports on global studies that were conducted over the course of a decade. It includes survey data from 55,000 households in
seven countries and five regions, in-depth interviews of 1,000 families in six countries and five regions, and examinations of public policies in over
170 countries. While research has been conducted previously in North America, Europe and comparatively across the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), this is the first study of its kind on a global scale.

Heymann, J., Toomey, S., & Furstenberg, F. (1999). Working parents: What factors are involved in their ability to take time off from
work when their children are sick? Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 153(8), 870-874.

This study was developed in response to research indicating that sick children recover faster when they are cared for by their parents. The authors
sought to determine the work conditions that permit and restrict parental ability to care for their sick children. The sample consisted of urban working
parents between the ages of 26 and 29 years, who participated in the Baltimore Parenthood Study. The participants were of mixed income levels.
The abstract of this article is available at: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/153/8/870

6
Waldfogel, J. (2001). Family and medical leave: Evidence from the 2000 surveys. Monthly Labor Review, 124(9), 17-23.

The study analyzed information from “…. two new surveys of employees and establishments conducted by Westat for the Department of Labor in the
summer and fall of 2000 …The 2000 Survey of Employees interviewed 2,558 U.S. residents who had been employed at any time since January 1,
1999. Three types of individuals were included in the survey: (1) leave takers…(2) leave needers…and (3) other employees. The 2000 Survey of
Establishments gathered information from a random sample of 1,839 private business establishments, some covered by the FMLA and some not. Like
the original 1995 survey, the 2000 survey did not include government employers” (p. 17, 18).