Achieving prosperity for all Americans could not be more urgent. Although the United States remains the most prosperous nation on earth, millions of citizens are losing faith in the American dream of upward mobility, and in American-style capitalism itself. This crisis of confidence has widened the divide afflicting American politics and cries out…

With this enlightening handbook, you can review the thinking of leading researchers on the current intersection of gender and higher education. "The Wiley Handbook of Gender Equity in Higher Education" provides an in-depth look at education's complicated relationships with, and in some cases inadequate fostering of, gender equity. The…

One of the most important factors in school performance is parental involvement. However, many parents do not have the flexibility in their work schedules or the leave policies necessary to attend school functions. As a result, legislators are creating policies to address this issue. This policy brief tackles the following questions: (1) What is…

Although work-family balance policies are slowly becoming the norm at four-year institutions, they are not equally common at community colleges. In part, this discrepancy is due to the cost of providing assistance to faculty. Unlike community colleges, research institutions tend to have sufficient resources to offer accommodations for faculty,…

When the bell rings at the end of a school day, millions of children are left to their own devices while they wait for their families to return home at the end of the work day. Findings from a study conducted by the Afterschool Alliance, "America After 3PM," show that 15.1 million children are unsupervised when the school day ends. The…

Written for policymakers, parents, and child care providers, this book provides an in-depth look at the child care industry, identifying crucial problems such as quality of care and the high cost of even mediocre care. The book identifies needed changes, including stronger regulatory procedures for providers and suppliers of care and tens of…

Although the Family and Medical Leave Act enabled some parents to take unpaid parental leave in order to fulfill family responsibilities, it did not cover all workers and did not provide workers the financial support to do so. This policy report calls for Congress to: require states to allow new parents who have been working to collect…

Increasing attention is being paid to the question of how special populations are affected by welfare reform. One subgroup that has been largely ignored in research concerning the effects of welfare reform on children and families is that of children with disabilities and their families. In order to address this gap in both policy and research,…

This issue of "The Future of Children" focuses on the daily care of infants and toddlers in the United States, highlighting information on caregiving arrangements, employer and government initiatives, promising strategies, and resources for use by journalists and policymakers. The guide begins with a summary of major findings related to…

Within the last 50 years, the work-family-household arrangements upon which social policy systems in industrial nations were formulated have disappeared. This briefing paper examines how social policies of the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, and France have responded. The paper is presented in two major sections. The first section describes…

Despite the growing interest in the care of children younger than age 3, there is little national information available on their current child care arrangements. This study used data from the National Survey of America's Families on the types of care, hours in care, and the number of nonparental arrangements for under-age-3 children of working…

Over the last generation, parents have felt more and more intimidated by child care "experts" and have increasingly surrendered their role as the primary educators of their children. On the premise that theories of development, often colored by ideological positions on the family and its function in society, should take a back seat to…

Currently there is a lack of affordable, accessible, quality child care in America. A substandard child care system not only negatively affects families, but also impacts broader societal and political issues, such as the economy, gender equity, tax and budget policies, and welfare reform. In this report, the authors propose two recommendations to…

This document contains two papers on connections between work and health and policy options for improving the health of working families. "Foreword" (James A. Auerbach) places the two papers in the context of recent research on the connections between work, family, and health. Chapter 1's overview addresses the changing nature of work,…

This document contains the 2003 issues of a quarterly newsletter encouraging collaborative research and informed policy on welfare reform and focusing on use of an on-line database of child welfare research projects, as well as on research and policy issues related to implementation studies, indicators of well-being, and administrative data. Each…