This impassioned and informed book is the first to describe how government and industry have failed working families and what we can do to get beyond this critical impasse. This hard-hitting book draws on the first systematic national research on how the need to meet family obligations is affecting working Americans of all social classes and ethnic groups. What happens when kids get sick? When an elderly parent is hospitalized? How do poor families cope with work-family demands? Jody Heymann's research points to a widening gap between working families and the health and development of children. Outdated labor policy and practice must be brought into the twenty-first century, argues Heymann. To do less is to abandon the precepts of equal opportunity on which America is founded. 001 0465013643