The Widening Gap [Paperback]

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 Outdated labor policy and practice must be brought into the twenty-first century, argues Heymann.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.

Jody Heymann, M.D., Ph.D., is a member of the faculty of Harvard University and Director of Policy for the Harvard University Center for Society and Health. She is the author of Equal Partners: A Physician's Call for a New Spirit of Medicine. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.