Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a resident fellow and assistant to the president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

A review of: The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work by Arlie Russell Hochschild Metropolitan Books 316 pages; $22.50

How times have changed. Nineteenth century reformers used to complain that workplace labor was arduous, with long hours spent in unhealthy conditions. Now modern reformers disapprove of pleasant work, which makes work more attractive than home for many men and women. And feminists used to complain that women didn't have as challenging jobs as men -- now Dr. Arlie Hochschild in The Time Bind is griping that women are forced to spend too much time away from home.

Work as a social outlet and source of pride

The Time Bind paints a depressing picture of parents who spend long hours away from home and children not out of economic necessity, but by choice. They flee household chores, unhappy marriages and crying children for a cup of coffee with friendly coworkers who remember their birthdays. Dr. Hochschild, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, based her book on an intensive study of a Fortune 500 company, interviewing a sample of workers at all levels of the corporation and observing them at home and at work.

It's not that Amerco, Hochschild's fictional name for the subject of her study, didn't offer family-friendly policies to employees. The workers preferred to put in long hours and build up overtime rather than use the part-time and job-sharing options that were available. In general, for both men and women, working long hours was a source of pride.

The effects of the feminist culture

The Time Bind is depressing -- but is it true? Data from the Department of Labor show that in 1996 40% of married women with children under six and 53% of married women with children aged between 6 and 17 worked full-time. That still leaves a lot of moms who either stay home or work part-time, not representative of the Amerco sample.

But Hochschild has put her finger on the modern woman's dilemma. The feminist revolution sent the message that the path to fulfillment was through a career, so young women are now growing up with the expectation that they should join the paid workforce rather than raising a family. But children still need parental attention. Hochschild's description could very well be true for those mothers who work full time in demanding jobs:

"But why weren't Amerco parents putting up a bigger fight for family time...? Many of them may have been responding to a powerful process that is devaluing what was once the essence of family life...For women as well as men, work in the marketplace is less often a simple economic fact than a complex cultural value. If in the early part of the century it was considered unfortunate that a woman had to work, it is now thought surprising when she doesn't." (Page 198)

Get on message

Feminists need to update their message to say that staying home with children is a valued lifestyle. Work is a choice, rather than an economic necessity, as a recent study by Professor Juhn of the University of Houston shows. In Relative Wage Trends, Women's Work, and Family Income, Juhn shows that between 1969 and 1989 the increase in wives' employment and hours of work was largest among those with husbands who earned high wages, where the additional income was of the least importance.

Rather than mandating shorter work weeks and increased vacation, as Hochschild proposes, employers could be encouraged to hire part-time workers and allow job-sharing by reducing existing taxes and regulations. Currently, the fixed costs per employee of unemployment insurance, workers' compensation insurance, family leave and payroll taxes -- as well as optional health insurance -- have to be paid twice if two part-time workers are hired for one job. And the myriad of regulations that tell companies whom they can hire and that discourage unproductive workers from being fired provide yet another reason for employers to hire as few people as possible. If laws such as this were altered we could see some true family-friendly workplaces.

The ramifications of the feminist revolution are now percolating through children's lives, and it is to Hochschild's credit that she is raising the question of the costs of these policies on children. Feminists rarely connect the movement of women into the workforce with unsupervised children at home, rising drug use and crime and falling academic achievement, and Hochschild does not do so either. But she has made a start by graphically describing children in day care starving for parental attention, and for this she is to be commended.