Reconciling Work and Life

When the US government started to develop the National Plan on Responsible Business Conduct, we at Walla Walla Solutions suggested policies that address the reconciliation between work and family life (see attachment 1). The National Plan'which was initiated by request of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights'made many suggestions focused on important issues such as low minimum salary, the work situation of farm workers and Native Americans, human...
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When the US government started to develop the National Plan on Responsible Business Conduct, we at Walla Walla Solutions suggested policies that address the reconciliation between work and family life (see attachment 1). The National Plan'which was initiated by request of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights'made many suggestions focused on important issues such as low minimum salary, the work situation of farm workers and Native Americans, human trafficking in the supply chain, and work conditions in the supply chain overseas. However, a broader reflection on the work culture in the US, with its expectation of 24/7 availability, was missing.At the same time, many eloquently written books and a huge number of newspaper articles were being published that described the same big problem with having it all: workplaces are still designed for a breadwinner-homemaker model that is no longer an ideal or an option for most of us. But how can the paradigm shift happen to change this design'to allow real choices for women and men regarding work and family life? What ideas need to be transformed? What workplace policies are needed? What could be the model? Low birthrates in Europe created a situation that brought the relevant actors together: businesses, unions, governments, and civil society started to create initiatives and policies to adjust workplaces to today's realities. But this has not happened in the US.The following paper describes the long history of women as food providers, and the very short history of women as housewives and mothers. It discusses the downside of the traditional family model, and the current challenges of ?having it all'and it presents the successes and challenges Germany has experienced in its efforts to reconcile work and family life.