1. Describe the balance that you currently seek between career and family life. Do you believe that the mindset of corporate America is conducive to the type of work and family arrangement that would suit you? Explain the major reasons why or why not.
2. Explain whether or not you believe the United States should require companies to provide paid maternity leave. Suppose the U.S. did make maternity leave a requirement. Discuss whether or not you believe the U.S. government should assist companies to do so. Describe your stance on the U.S. requiring companies to offer paternity leave. Provide a rationale for your position.
3. Should specialized organizational arrangements be made for workers who wish to combine career and child raising? Explain why or why not. Suppose specialized organizational arrangements must be made for such workers. Identify steps that companies can take to accommodate parental needs more effectively.
4. Does a firm have an obligation to give employees the flexibility to work out the particular balance of career and family that is right for them? Or does this go beyond the social responsibilities of business? Justify your response.
5. Cite your textbook as a reference.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
. Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
. Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
. Analyze the concepts of public safety and government regulation along with the role of business responsibility.
. Recommend ways in which businesses can be partners with nature by applying the concepts of business ethics, business ecology, and environmental ethics.
. Use technology and information resources to research issues in business ethics.
. Write clearly and concisely about business ethics using proper writing mechanics.
Swedish Daddies
years ago, the famous economist Paul
Samuelson quipped that “women are just men with less
money.” He was referring to the financially dependent position
of women at that time, when they were unlikely to be
employed outside the home and, if they were, were likely to
earn substantially less than men. That has now changed for
the better. Although women have yet to achieve full equity at
the highest levels of business, they constitute nearly half the
U.S. workforce, and their pay is not so very far behind that of
men. Moreover, with the decline of manufacturing and the
growing importance of the service sector in today’s economy,
brain power matters more than brawn. Here women can
compete as well as men, and they have proved their value
to employers over and over again. In fact, they now outnumber
men in professional and managerial positions. And, with
women continuing to graduate from college at a higher rate
and in greater numbers than men, their future looks bright.121
But for many women there is one continuing source of
frustration. They often feel forced to choose between motherhood
and a high-powered career. Jobs that offer the hours
and flexibility that suit women with family responsibilities
tend to pay less, while the most financially rewarding jobs
frequently require brutal hours and total commitment to the
job. And the higher you go, the rougher it gets. Not only must
those who want to fight their way to the top of the corporate
world work long, grueling hours, but they are also often
expected to gain experience working in different departments
and divisions and even in different countries. That
tends to rule out women with family commitments. As a
result, women with children, especially single mothers, earn
less on average than men do while childless women earn
almost as much as men.
Over the years, some business writers have argued that
we should simply accept this fact and that companies
should distinguish between the career-primary woman and
the career-and-family woman. Those in the first category
put their careers first. They remain single or childless or, if
they do have children, are satisfied to have others raise
them. The automatic association of all women with babies
is unfair to these women, argues Felice N. Schwartz, an
organizer and advocate for working women. “The secret to
dealing with such women,” she writes, “is to recognize
them early, accept them, and clear artificial barriers from
their path to the top.”
The majority of women, however, fall into the second category.
They want to pursue genuine careers while participating
actively in the rearing of their children. Most of them,
Schwartz and others believe, are willing to trade some career
growth and compensation for freedom from the constant
pressure to work long hours and weekends. By forcing these
women to choose between family and career, companies lose
a valuable resource and a competitive advantage. Instead,
firms must plan for and manage maternity, they must provide
the flexibility to help career-and-family women be maximally
productive, and they must take an active role in providing
family support and in making high-quality, affordable child
care available to all women. In other words, companies
should provide women with the option of a comfortable, but
slower “mommy track.”
Although distinguishing between career-primary women
and career-and-family women seems reasonable and humane,
there’s rarely any mention of fathers or of shared parental
responsibility for raising children. The mommy track idea also
takes for granted the existing values, structures, and biases of
a corporate world that is still male dominated. As authors
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deidre English write, “Eventually it is
the corporate culture itself that needs to slow down to a
human pace . . . [and end] workloads that are incompatible
with family life.”
One country that is trying to push things in a new direction
is Sweden. Whereas America stands almost alone in the
world in not guaranteeing women paid maternity leave,
Sweden provides sixteen months paid leave per child, with
the costs shared between the employer and the government.
However—and this is what is novel—at least two of these
months are reserved for fathers. No father is forced to take
baby leave, but the leave is nontransferable so it’s “use it or
lose it.” And more and more men are using it. In fact, more
than eight in ten Swedish fathers now take advantage of
parental leave. And some Swedish politicians are arguing that
more months—perhaps, half of them—should be exclusively
for fathers. Germany has now followed Sweden’s lead. In
2007 it began guaranteeing fathers two months’ paternity
leave. No country, however, has gone further toward parental
equity than Iceland. It reserves three months of parental leave
for the father and three months for the mother, and allows
parents to share an additional three months.
In the meantime, the paternity-leave law is helping to
redefine masculinity in Sweden. Take game warden Mikael
Karlson. A former soldier who owns a snowmobile, two hunting
dogs, and five guns, he’s a man’s man. Cradling his twomonth-
old baby girl in his arms, he says he cannot imagine
not taking parental leave. “Everyone does it.” Not only does
his wife agree, but she says that he never looks more attractive
to her than “when he is in the forest with his rifle over his
shoulder and the baby on his back.” Some men admit that
they were unsure of themselves at first—the cooking, cleaning,
and sleepless nights—but that they adjusted to it and
even liked it. One Swedish father calls it a “life-changing
experience.”
“Many men no longer want to be identified just by their
jobs,” says Bengt Westerberg, who as deputy prime minister
helped to bring the law about. “Many women now expect their
husbands to take at least some time off with the children.”
“Now men can have it all—a successful career and being a
responsible daddy,” adds Birgitta Ohlsson, another government
minister. “It’s a new kind of manly. It’s more wholesome.”
Some also think the paternity-leave law is the reason that the
divorce rate in Sweden has declined in recent years.
There are, however, stories of companies’ discouraging
men from taking long baby leaves, and managers admit that
parental leave can be disruptive. Still, by and large Swedish
business has adapted, and many companies find that a familyfriendly
work environment helps them attract talented
employees. “Graduates used to look for big paychecks,” says
one human resources manager. “Now they want work-life
balance.”
Discussion Questions
1. If you have, or plan to have, children, what sort of balance
do you seek between career and family life? Do you
believe that the mindset of corporate America is conducive
to the type of work-and-family arrangement that would
suit you?
2. Should the United States require companies to provide
paid maternity leave? Should it assist them to do so? What
about paternity leave?
3. Do companies already have a mommy track, whether they
call it that or not? Is the idea a good one? Is it somehow
discriminatory against women? Against men?
4. Should men be more actively involved in childrearing? If
not, why not? If so, what steps, if any, should either business
or society take to encourage this?
5. Should special organizational arrangements be made for
workers who wish to combine career and child raising? If
so, identify the steps that companies can take to accommodate
parental needs more effectively.
6. Does a firm have an obligation to give employees the
flexibility to work out the particular balance of career and
family that is right for them? Or does this go beyond the
social responsibilities of business?
7. Can paid maternity or paternity leave make sense from a
business point of view, even if it is not subsidized by the
government?
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swedish_daddies_assignment_2_bus_mgmt.docx
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