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September 1990, Vol. 113, No. 9
Helping employees with family care
Stephanie L. Hyland
One of the more noteworthy recent developments in employee compensation practices has been an increase in the number and types of benefits offered by employers. In the postwar period, companies have offered a fairly standard package of benefits emphasizing health and life insurance, retirement income plans, and paid leave such as vacations and sick leave. Several other common benefits such as severance pay and employee discounts have a long history, but these items are often of secondary value to the employee. In the work environment of today, however, employers are beginning to recognize another need among their labor force: the need for child care and related benefits to assist working parents.
These developments reflect several labor force trends. The increasing presence of women in the work force and the rise in the proportion of families in which both parents work outside the home have led to greater emphasis on providing family-related benefits, such as child care and parental leave. In a related development, the aging of the population and advances in medicine have led to increasing numbers of workers who must care for elderly dependents. New benefit plans are also reflecting these trends.
This excerpt is from an article published in the September 1990 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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