Who Helps Working Women Care for the Young and the Old?

Women continue to be overburdened by the conflicting demands of work and family responsibilities, even though some employers are introducing "family-friendly " policies and the rhetoric of social policy is profamily. This article examines the issue of dependent care as a workplace concern from a feminist perspective and critiques current governmental and employer policies and program initiatives, citing trends in Wisconsin as illustrations. It also proposes realistic strate-gies for social workers to help women gain more control over their work, home, and family lives. Dependent care, meaning responsibility for the care of mem-bers of society who, because of age or other circumstance are unable to care for themselves, has become a highly visible socioeconomic-political issue in the past 10 years. Most of the attention has been devoted to deploring the situation of young children who do not have a 24-hour, at-home parent, but the plight of older adults who are no longer able to maintain them-selves independently is increasingly being addressed. This ar-ticle analyzes governmental and workplace responses to these issues and proposes that women should become leaders in finding solutions that are woman friendly, as well as family friendly. Nationally, in 1991, 75 percent of women aged 20-44 were in the labor force, including more than half the women wit