Revising America’s Educational Calendar to Resolve the Imbalance Between Work and Family Life

Since the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, America’s birth rate has steadily and precipitously declined¹. Moreover, data released by the Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2022 reports that births per 1,000 women have fallen nearly 20 percent over the last decade, and such trends are expected to continue in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic². And while analysts and pundits alike can debate the political and/or economic bases for these reports, the impact of conflicting priorities among employed Americans will remain largely discounted. Specifically, America’s extraordinary gains in wealth and productivity may be largely attributed to its heavily educated workforce, with two-thirds holding at least some post-secondary degree³. Regardless of educational attainment, the drive to work hard and acquire earnings casted itself over American society, with 58 percent of households classified as “dual-earning”^3.5. In turn, the prioritization of job performance by a staggering labor force has emerged into a work-family imbalance which coincides with a drastic decrease in the national birthrate over time. With more people, particularly women, attending college now than ever before, attitudes geared towards career advancement will gradually direct the masses away from child rearing⁴.

 

As birth rates in the U.S. continue to decline, action must be taken to alleviate the concerns wielded by much of the nation’s aspiring workforce. Primarily, parents of dual-earning households are unable to maintain a proper work ethic while also navigating a labyrinth of obstacles related to childcare. In other words, future workers fear the burden of time management. A traditional full-time shift in America is scheduled from 8 AM to 5 PM compared to the traditional school day which runs from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM⁵. While more than 70 percent of parents are classified as full-time workers, they remain forced to accommodate an outdated, illogical school schedule. However, the grand solution is not to discourage future generations from bearing children altogether. Rather, a legislative alteration must be made to the existing K-12 schooling schedule. Not only would this strategy reduce the remedy of child rearing on parents, but it would also improve the capabilities of children as well as organizations which will progressively attain a more educated workforce. Requiring children to stay in school for longer hours through a greater portion of the year would enable dual-career families to establish a suitable balance between work and family⁶.

 

Productivity

Undoubtedly, the primary issue for many aspiring parents is the feasibility of maintaining successful careers while also dedicating ample time for childcare. More so, the struggle of navigating a work-parents lifestyle has the potential to wreak havoc on the traditional practice of parenting, leaving parents to play “this or that” with their work and family relationships. Regarding the implications of child rearing on worker productivity, there are several sacrifices made pertaining to attention, availability, and mental and physical stamina in order to enhance one’s relationship with their child⁷. Granted, the heft of these conflicts is endured by mothers, otherwise considered to be the essential nurturers of a child’s development. Also, any revision to the current education calendar must be directed toward the personal rather than economic aspects of productivity. The primary justification for those shying away from family life is rooted in these sacrifices: A significant dedication to work will result in a greater amount of earnings which may be used on leisure as a substitute for childcare⁸. Thus, the values and commitments placed upon work trumps those associated with familial relationships; there is also something to be said for the impact of direct observation, i.e., young adults being discouraged from child rearing as a result of their own hectic and imbalanced experiences.

Attention

Attention is a vital component to childcare as well as growth. In fact, entire attachment styles developed by children in their adulthood (secure, anxious-ambivalent, insecure) are a direct result of the frequency at which parents appear and invest themselves in a child’s life⁹. Inevitably, the formation of stable relationships is largely determined by the input of the caretakers, thereby placing additional mounds pressure and stress on parents. As for work ethic, there is a significant correlation between an awareness of one’s responsibilities and job performance¹⁰. According to 2019 data from the Pew Research Center, 51% of respondents asked about attention struggles due to parenting confirmed that they were unable to commit enough energy to feel productive and accomplished in their respective workplace¹¹. The current educational calendar and time schedule lacks any acknowledgement of standards of service and achievement which working parents strive to meet.

 

Availability

In early 2019, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic spurred a collective cut-back in the number of hours working parents could spend at their jobs. This was due to the influx of remote learning enforced by all American school districts, which has largely subsided as of late¹². Nevertheless, availability remains a vital asset to those dedicated to maximum job performance, and it shall continue to impede pre-parent work schedules. America’s daily school schedule runs from 7:30 AM to 2:30 PM, with a small portion of well-funded elementary schools offering before- and after-school care services until 6 PM at the latest. Of course, the inability for all students to enjoy these benefits sheds light on the socioeconomic inequities faced by low-earning dual-career families and school districts¹³. With more than 53% of mothers estimated to reducing hours-worked at their jobs, it is crucial that a revision to current school schedules and calendars remedy the sacrifice of potential earnings made by parents of all economics backgrounds.

 

Mental and Physical Stamina

Health issues plague working parents, and these only promulgate the lasting impact of work-related conflicts with family life. As people continually push themselves to maneuver intensive work and care schedules, they risk overwhelming exhaustion. Over time, parents will endure an overload of stress and, in turn, suffer from shortened tempers, negatively affecting their attitudes towards work as well as childcare¹⁴.

 

Why Young Americans Are Having Fewer Children

[Data from a Morning Consult survey of 1,858 men and women between the ages of 20 and 45 reveals numerous factors considered by Americans when deciding whether to have one or more children, ranked in terms of proportional popularity¹⁵.]

 

Current Policies and Successes 

The most prevalent example of an unconventional school year (in the eyes of American students) is the year-round model, which redistributes school and vacation days evenly throughout a given year¹⁶. Within this model, there are two forms: single-track and multi-track. Single-track schooling is likely the more common of the two, advocating for the implementation of short intercessions between normal-length semesters (or trimesters) in order to make up for loss in achievement over the course of a traditional summer break. The other program is known as multi-track schooling, which aims to segment students based on break status. In essence, one portion of students in each district are attending school while the others are on break. However, this is primarily used to resolve overcrowding issues. The primary goal of this model is to preserve year-round operations¹⁷. First, this model directly improves academic as well as cognitive performance among students of all age groups. Additionally, sociological advantages such as reduced delinquent behavior and improved health and living conditions have been observed in a series of peer-reviewed studies¹⁸. Clearly, there is an ample supply of benefits posed for future participants in the American workforce. For parents, this policy has been attributed to tremendous success, with experts claiming that the scramble for dual-earning families to search for childcare as well as meaningful connections will end with year-round schooling¹⁹. However, one clear exception is that extreme cases of implementation, i.e., limited breaks and seemingly unlimited time restrictions, would simply transfer the stress from working parents to developing, vulnerably school children. This, as expected, is a significant red flag. Considering that educational policies are largely determined by state governments, the federal government would likely be held responsible for mere oversight. Rather than encourage subsidies to be thrown as incentives to predominantly wealthy states already capable of implementing this calendar, it would be more economically friendly to impose a federal mandate and require all American public schools to follow a year-round school calendar, with hours being extended from 7:30 AM to 4 PM.