Unfinished Business: Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family Policy

by Ruth Milkman, Eileen Appelbaum

Overview

Unfinished Business documents the history and impact of California's paid family leave program, the first of its kind in the United States, which began in 2004. Drawing on original data from fieldwork and surveys of employers, workers, and the larger California adult population, Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum analyze in detail the effect of the state’s landmark paid family leave on employers and workers. They also explore the implications of California’s decade-long experience with paid family leave for the nation, which is engaged in ongoing debate about work-family policies.Milkman and Appelbaum recount the process by which California workers and their allies built a coalition to win passage of paid family leave in the state legislature, and lay out the lessons for advocates in other states and localities, as well as the nation. Because paid leave enjoys extensive popular support across the political spectrum, campaigns for such laws have an excellent chance of success if some basic preconditions are met. Do paid family leave and similar programs impose significant costs and burdens on employers? Business interests argue that they do and routinely oppose any and all legislative initiatives in this area. Once the program took effect in California, this book shows, large majorities of employers themselves reported that its impact on productivity, profitability, and performance was negligible or positive.Unfinished Business demonstrates that the California program is well managed and easy to access, but that awareness of its existence remains limited. Moreover, those who need the program’s benefits most urgently—low-wage workers, young workers, immigrants, and disadvantaged minorities—are least likely to know about it. As a result, the long-standing pattern of inequality in access to paid leave has remained largely intact.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801478956
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	11/15/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ruth Milkman is Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and Academic Director of CUNY’s Murphy Labor Institute. She is the author of several books, including the prizewinning Gender at Work and L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement. She is the editor of Organizing Immigrants and coeditor of Rebuilding Labor and Working for Justice, all from Cornell. Eileen Appelbaum is Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. She is the coauthor of Manufacturing Advantage: Why Higher Performance Work Systems Pay Off and The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the United States, both from Cornell.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: The Case for Paid Family Leave
2. The Politics of Family Leave, Past and Present
3. Challenges of Legislative Implementation
4. Paid Family Leave and California Business
5. The Reproduction of Inequality
6. Conclusions and Future Challenges
Methodological Appendix
Notes
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Heather Boushey

Unfinished Business adds depth to our knowledge about how to craft and implement a new social insurance program that addresses the needs of today's families. Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum have conducted extensive quantitative and qualitative research that illuminates the effects of California's Paid Family Leave program on families, workers and employers. This is an important book and a must read for anyone who cares about making sure that everyone has time to care for themselves and their loved ones.

Janet Gornickco

Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum provide a perceptive and lively account of the passage, implementation, and impact of the United States' first paid family leave law, passed in California in 2002. Unfinished Business assesses the initial decade of this landmark law, revealing a complex mix of success and disappointment: employers have reacted more positively than expected but the equalization of access to paid leave has not come to pass. The authors’ keen observations about the economics and politics of the policy process will compel a diverse audience of academics and advocates, as well as policy practitioners working at both the state and national level.

Editorial Reviews

In Unfinished Business, Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum tell the story of the political struggle that led to the advent of [Paid Family Leave] and explore the effects and limitations of the program in the first several years following its implementation. The modest length of this book is deceptive, as the authors manage to convey the past, present, and future of this policy with great depth and the support of several fascinating data sources.. Since state-level policies are often used as testing ground for changes to federal policy, this book is necessary reading for advocates of national paid family leave in the United States.

Amy Armenian Journal of Sociology

I believe the book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand and overcome the challenges to implementing successful work-family policies in the United States. As the authors suggest in their title, considerable unfinished business remains both in California and in the nation as a whole.

--Candace Howes "ILRReview"

In Unfinished Business, Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum tell the story of the political struggle that led to the advent of [Paid Family Leave] and explore the effects and limitations of the program in the first several years following its implementation. The modest length of this book is deceptive, as the authors manage to convey the past, present, and future of this policy with great depth and the support of several fascinating data sources.. Since state-level policies are often used as testing ground for changes to federal policy, this book is necessary reading for advocates of national paid family leave in the United States.

--Amy Armenia "American Journal of Sociology"

These books can be recommended to academicsstudents and policy makers. Milkman and Appelbaum's examination of one policy development in one place is necessarily narrower in focus but offers more depth than Kröger and Yeandle's cross-national analysis.

--Narjes Mehdizadeh "Work, employment and security"

From the Publisher

"Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum provide a perceptive and lively account of the passage, implementation, and impact of the United States' first paid family leave law, passed in California in 2002. Unfinished Business assesses the initial decade of this landmark law, revealing a complex mix of success and disappointment: employers have reacted more positively than expected but the equalization of access to paid leave has not come to pass. The authors’ keen observations about the economics and politics of the policy process will compel a diverse audience of academics and advocates, as well as policy practitioners working at both the state and national level."

Janet Gornickco

"Unfinished Business adds depth to our knowledge about how to craft and implement a new social insurance program that addresses the needs of today's families. Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum have conducted extensive quantitative and qualitative research that illuminates the effects of California's Paid Family Leave program on families, workers and employers. This is an important book and a must read for anyone who cares about making sure that everyone has time to care for themselves and their loved ones."

Heather Boushey

These books can be recommended to academicsstudents and policy makers. Milkman and Appelbaum's examination of one policy development in one place is necessarily narrower in focus but offers more depth than Kröger and Yeandle’s cross-national analysis.

Work, employment and security - Narjes Mehdizadeh

I believe the book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand and overcome the challenges to implementing successful work-family policies in the United States. As the authors suggest in their title, considerable unfinished business remains both in California and in the nation as a whole.

ILRReview - Candace Howes

In Unfinished Business, Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum tell the story of the political struggle that led to the advent of [Paid Family Leave] and explore the effects and limitations of the program in the first several years following its implementation. The modest length of this book is deceptive, as the authors manage to convey the past, present, and future of this policy with great depth and the support of several fascinating data sources.. Since state-level policies are often used as testing ground for changes to federal policy, this book is necessary reading for advocates of national paid family leave in the United States.

American Journal of Sociology - Amy Armenia