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A Primer on EEOC Guidelines on Caregivers

By Stacey McKee Knight and Marjorie L. Wilkinson
July 31, 2008

The 21st-Century workplace is not your parents' workplace. Fewer women are choosing, or are economically permitted, to stay home after they have children and, as a result, there are significantly more women working, full-time or part-time. At the same time, studies indicate that the amount of time men spend on childcare has tripled since 1965. A natural consequence of the spike in the number of two-income families in the last 30 years is that men are now shouldering more child-rearing obligations. In addition, many employees are assuming caregiver responsibilities for their elderly parents or disabled family members. Consequently, the pool of employees who bear some caregiver responsibilities and thus are potentially entitled to family responsibilities discrimination ('FRD') protection is enormous and crosses gender, racial, economic and generational lines.

It is, therefore, not surprising that FRD has become one of the most important and difficult issues facing employers. How do employers retain valuable employees, who have significant family responsibilities? Equally perplexing, how do employers fairly and effectively manage non-performers who also happen to act as primary caregivers? These complicated dilemmas can easily turn into legal exposure when employers make stereotypical assumptions about which gender is best suited for caregiving, the commitment level employees should have before and after they have children or the accommodations or restrictions necessary when an employee assumes responsibilities at home. Employers need an attack plan and must begin to think creatively to address every situation that arises in the workplace to protect themselves from increasingly popular FRD claims.

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