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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES Study: Parents' Presence Helps Heal Children By Alvin Powell
Sick children heal quicker when parents are there, studies have shown, yet less than half of working parents stay home when kids are sick. A recent Harvard survey sheds light on why this apparently effective remedy – the presence of a parent – is so rare, showing that paid leave is the largest determinant of whether parents take time off to be home with the kids. Many working parents can’t afford to take unpaid days from work and certainly can’t afford to be fired by a boss angry at repeated unplanned absences. The survey, by Jody Heymann, an assistant professor of health and social behavior in the School of Public Health, showed that the most common factor determining whether a parent stays home with a sick child isn’t race, ethnicity, social class, or type of job. It’s the availability of paid leave. The lack of paid leave does, nevertheless, hit low-income parents hardest, particularly those coming off welfare, Heymann said. Low-income parents are most likely to have jobs without paid sick and vacation leave and are also more likely to have sick children or a child with a chronic illness. "We know there are huge disparities in working conditions," Heymann said. "Low -income parents are much more likely to lack vacation leave, sick leave, and [work schedule] flexibility." Heymann has seen the effects of the lack of paid leave firsthand. Her interest in the issue was sparked during a long-term ethnographic survey she conducted of 100 urban families, during which she heard stories of former welfare mothers fired after taking time off to care for sick children and of mothers who sent their sick children to school and daycare so they could go to work. In one case, the child grew sicker at daycare and wound up having to be hospitalized. "Those are the stories that make you passionate," Heymann said. "I haven’t met anyone who has children who doesn’t deal with this." Though the survey’s results may not be surprising, they are important, Heymann avers, because they show that workplace practices and national labor laws conflict with the day-to-day reality in today’s families, often headed by single parents or by two working parents. "The reason we need to show these things, whether or not they’re surprising, is that they’re totally opposite to how we’re formulating public policy now," Heymann said. For example, Heymann added, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides unpaid leave to workers at large companies, leaving about half the work force unprotected by its provisions. Even if they were covered, though, the act’s impact would be slight, because most workers can’t afford to take unpaid leave, Heymann said. The results highlight a need for national paid time off standards for all workers, Heymann said, so that even low-income workers have the option of staying home to care for a sick child.
Copyright 1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College |
