Report Plan: Company Sponsored Child Care
Gabriele Piontek-Allport
ENG 315 – Professional Communication
Dr. J. Henry
04/13/2013

Family life in the United States has changed dramatically. The traditional “June Cleaver” scenario with dad bringing home the bacon and mom, always looking impeccable, staying home rearing the 2.5 children has become an item on the endangered species list. In today’s economic climate it takes two incomes to make ends meet. And therein lays the problem for parents.
As any parent can attest to, finding good, affordable, and quality childcare these days poses a not so little challenge. In the past 3 decades millions of women have entered or reentered the workforce (Cattan, Child-care problems: an obstacle to work, 1991). Many of those women have children. Even when child care can be secured, the cost compared to income makes it not feasible, especially for a single mother in a lower income bracket, to work. For an employer this means losing a potentially valuable and qualified asset, the employee.
Businesses and organizations have long been aware of this obstacle to work. Lack of child care poses a severe threat to obtaining and holding down gainful employment. Therefore, for many years now, various interest groups have lobbied the Federal Government for legislation that would grant assistance to parents with children in need of child care (Cattan, Child-care problems: an obstacle to work, 1991).
Not only interest groups but also employers themselves have realized that corporate-sponsored child care is a win-win situation. Many employers today offer some kind of child care benefit as part of an entire benefit package offered to prospective employees. In fact a study by the Society of Human Resource Management reveal that 14 percent of employers offer some kind of emergency or sick child care, up from six percent in previous years