ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9607020028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
President Clinton and congressional Republicans are pitching for the votes of working women this November with competing "flex-time" proposals.
The blue suits are trying to show they feel the pain of females stressed out and stretched out by conflicting demands of jobs, children and other responsibilities.
In truth, however, it's not just working women. Many men, too, are pulled like ropes in a tug-of-war.
To be sure, in families where both parents work, most women still do most of the cooking, housework and chauffeuring of kids to and fro. And it's more often women who assume sandwich-generation duties such as taking care of an elderly relative's needs. Gradually, though, more men are increasingly taking on family and domestic roles previously assigned to women only.
Add the business world's demands today, and working men and women alike are suffering from the all-work, no-play syndrome. Too little time and energy are left for family, recreation, church or civic activities, especially when you consider the enormous time drain of mind-numbing television. People are tired of being tired.
A recent survey by Robert Half International Inc., a firm specializing in information technology, found that nearly two-thirds of Americans would gladly accept a reduction in on-the-job hours and salary in exchange for more family or personal time. The average amount they'd be willing to be cut back is 21 percent, a sharp increase over the finding of a similar 1989 survey.
Seventy-six percent of the respondents this year indicated rapid career advancement is not as important to them as greater fulfillment in their family and personal lives.
So the politicians are on to something in looking for ways to encourage employers to give workers more unpaid time off.
It would be nice, of course, if lawmakers reduced government-related costs of hiring, which make it harder to shorten the work week.
It also would be nice if more employers on their own recognized their interest in creating family-friendly workplaces. Happier, healthier, more loyal workers, the evidence shows, tend to be more productive.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB