Working family support as a national agenda

This month I was invited to attend a briefing by the White House Council on Women and Girls as a member of the Ellevate Network – a global professional women’s network dedicated to these beliefs and to the economic engagement of women worldwide. The council featured White House leaders on the forefront of representing the interest of women on a national level focusing on a wide variety of issues including working families, human trafficking, equal pay and more.

As the founder of Inkwell – a firm that focuses specifically on finding opportunities for executive level professional women in need of schedule-flexible employment – I paid specific attention to the session titled Working Families Economic Agenda led by Sandra Black, assistant to the President and member of the Council of Economic Advisers. What our country needs is a greater federal call to action on support of working families with additional tax benefits related to childcare including the hiring of independent daycare professionals.

{mosads}Today, fewer than one out of three children have a full time, stay-at-home-parent to support at-home childcare needs – a drastic change since the 1970s when almost half of all children in the U.S. had a stay-at-home parent (usually the mother). Yet, as the labor market continues to increase demands on our time and as our economy creates a greater need for extra sources for income, society has not offered additional resources for quality childcare. For many families this arrangement makes it difficult to justify the cost of childcare versus pursuing a career that may barely cover childcare costs if at all.

This issue becomes particularly grim when addressing the vast gap between the number of women versus men in high-level professional positions including the need for an increase in female entrepreneurs and leaders in STEM. Without the infrastructure to support women with quality, affordable childcare and increased family tax benefits, a woman’s ability to continue on the path of entrepreneurial development and an advanced career becomes increasingly difficult. In January of this year, in a poll that the Lake Research Partners completed for the Make It Work Campaign, it was reported that 88 percent of participants are in support of workers earning paid sick leave and 75 percent are in support of better access to affordable, high-quality childcare.  This would allow working families with the ability to provide care for their children when they are ill as well as provide extended leave for new mothers to stay at home and care for their newborn without added stress from the workplace.

Some solutions include providing access for working mothers to self-employment, flexible time and telecommute job opportunities. However, this does not address the need for a greater shift in federal support and recognition of personal time and costs associated with working family needs. The government needs to pay increased attention to reducing the tax on second wage earners (as working mothers are usually the first to suffer from increased household tax based on dual-income homes) as well as identifying additional opportunities for tax write offs associated with childcare needs. President Obama has addressed these needs with newly proposed tax credits and write-offs associated with working, dual-income families, however, until these and additional workplace support become a reality, women will continue to bear the burden of their growing families by being forced to make decisions regarding the financial strains associated with the pursuit of a high-level or entrepreneurial career path.

DeFelice is the founder of Inkwell, a firm that places executive level women with flexible job opportunities.