Resource Library

The report presents a high-level look at the community engagement (CE) project approach and analysis, and presents options that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Women’s Bureau (WB) may consider for future exploration. It is important to note that this project was not conducted as a rigorous assessment of the impact of the WB’s work overall or the work resulting from its CE approach. Rather, the focus was on understanding the CE activities the WB conducts at the regional level and developing potential options the WB could consider to strengthen its approach in the future.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) enables employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. However, while FMLA has increased leave-taking among eligible workers, overall effects have been modest, perhaps because much of the workforce is ineligible for FMLA, and many who are eligible are unaware of the law’s benefits and eligibility requirements.

The participation rate of mothers in the labor force has increased significantly over the last four decades with an estimated 71% participating in 2014 compared to 47% in 1975. Similarly, the share of households with mothers of children under the age of 18 as the sole or primary income earner has grown substantially, increasing from 11% in 1960 to 40% in 2011.

Welcoming a new child commonly requires working parents to face challenging decisions related to balancing their career obligations with the extensive caregiving responsibilities of a new child. The brief explores the association between paid leave use and the employment stability of a specific group of parents, first-time mothers, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation’s (SIPP) Fertility History Module.

Workers who are 55 years old and over are projected to remain the fastest growing segment of working adults in the U.S. through 2022. Health, longevity, education, and attitude are some of the reasons for their continued labor force attachment. In recent years, older workers have also either delayed retirement or re-entered the workforce due to financial losses in the Great Recession. Older workers face different challenges and responsibilities than their younger counterparts.

The brief explores the distributional impact of three alternative policy models for providing paid sick days taken from actual policies in the states and a federal proposal selected to show a range of generosity of provision. San Francisco was the first U.S. locality to pass paid sick days in 2006. Their Paid Sick Leave Ordinance (PSLO) covers nearly all workers in San Francisco and provides up to five days per year for workers employed in small businesses (under ten employees) and up to nine days per year for workers employed in larger businesses.

Analyses show that providing paid sick days under any alternative model policy increases the amount of paid time workers are able to take for medical and family needs, as intended, at reasonable costs to employers, ranging from 0.10 percent to 0.29 percent of payroll according to the generosity of the model. Employers of different sizes and in different industries would experience a range of costs under each model.

The brief summarizes a simulation analysis of five different paid family and medical leave model programs based on working programs in three states and a federal proposal, all applied to the national workforce. The analysis simulates worker behavior and estimates how many paid leaves would be taken under each model, the average weekly benefit level for each leave, and the total costs of the benefits paid. The analysis estimates the cost of benefits in dollars and as a share of total payroll for the nation as a whole and across industries and establishments of different sizes.

The report of a study first to examine the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) Federal Agency Targeting (FEDTARG) inspection program. Under the FEDTARG program, OSHA targets Federal worksites that have high lost time case (LTC) counts. The goal of the program is to reduce hazards, injuries and illnesses, and the costs associated with injuries and illnesses in Federal worksites.

The Chief Evaluation Office (CEO) works with other Department of Labor (DOL) agencies to conduct Administrative Data Research and Analysis (ADRA) studies. The various studies aim to examine administrative data sets from agencies within DOL and other federal agencies to provide timely responses to changing strategic agency priorities. Completed studies are listed below. New and ongoing studies will occur regularly.