Berkeley CHEFS' mission is to address the increasing insecurity faced by workers and families in the United States through the development of integrated and interdisciplinary policy solutions.
Events
Friday, May 6, 2011
Leaves that Pay: Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California
Ruth Milkan, City Univeristy of New York (CUNY)
Eileen Appelbaum, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
12:30 - 2:00 pm
Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall
Co-Sponsored with the Labor Project for Working Families
A new study shows that California’s Paid Family Leave program – that offers paid leave to workers when they take time off to care for a new child or sick family member – has received high marks from employers and employees alike since its implementation six years ago. The authors call for an expansion of Paid Family Leave to build on its early successes, and for efforts to promote increased awareness of it across California. Join us for a discussion with the authors about this exciting new study and opportunities for the future. For more information about this event, visit this link.
A full archive of all CHEFS events, including video recordings as well as links to related materials, can be found on the Events page.
Job Opportunities
Summer Interns In 2011, Berkeley CHEFS will host a small number of full-time Summer Interns. We will sponsor two types of summer interns:Legal summer internships: Open to students who have completed at least their first year of law school. We may consider individuals who have graduated law school and will start a judicial clerkship in the fall.
Social science summer internships: Open to graduate students who have completed at least one year of graduate study, including quantitative analysis coursework or other high level analytical skills.
For more information, please follow this link.
To apply for a summer internship, please forward a resume, cover letter, and references to Phyliss Martinez at CHEFS@law.berkeley.edu
News
Ann O'Leary joined a panel of experts in Washington, DC on Thursday, April 7th for a discussion of "Family Security Insurance," the proposal for paid family leave developed by Berkeley CHEFS in partnership with Workplace Flexibility 2010 at Georgetown University Law Center. To view a video recording of the event's proceedings, please visit this link.
March 9, 2011 - Mary Ann Mason in The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that gender equality in academe is still not within striking distance for most women. In her article, "The Pyramid Problem," she comments that on the three factors used to measure gender equality - representation on the faculty, salary parity and family formation - women are falling short.
Ann O'Leary joined the Families and Work Institute for a Corporate Leadership Circle conference call to discuss the findings from "A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's." The call focused on elder care and the support programs and policies needed in response to the profound cultural and economic shifts that are affecting our work and family lives as America ages. To listen to the complete report, please follow this link. Additionally, the conference calls information, materials and accompanying resources can also be found on their Web site.
Ann O'Leary and her "Our Working Nation – How Women's Progress is Reshaping America's Families and Economy" co-author Heather Boushey joined Maria Reitan on Purse Strings to discuss women's transformative move from the home and into the workplace has impacted everything and the policy changes that need to happen to accommodate this seismic shift in our society. Click here to listen to the full story.
AFL-CIO Now Blog, January 16, 2011 - Co-author Ann O'Leary, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Health, Economic & Family Security, adds: More and more Americans are combining work with family responsibilities, and they can't afford to sacrifice one or the other.
January 12, 2011, The Chronicle of Higher Learning - Mary Ann Mason's article, "How to Change Workplace Culture on Parenting," looks at the UC system and its faculty to examine why their family friendly policies, including teaching-relief benefits, are not used more often.
January 5, 2011, the New York Times reports that more women are obtaining Ph.D.’s in science than ever before, but those women — largely because of pressures from having a family — are far more likely than their male counterparts to “leak” out of the research science pipeline before obtaining tenure at a college or university, as noted in Mary Ann Mason's report "Keeping Women in Science on a Tenure Track."
Ann O'Leary contributed a chapter as well as provided the academic anchor to the newly released The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's. On October 15th, Maria Shriver and the Alzheimer's Association released this groundbreaking report, describing an epidemic of huge proportions for which American women, government, business and families are ill-prepared. For the full press release follow this link.
October 17, Ann O'Leary joined Maria Shriver on This Week with Christiane Amanpour kicking off a network wide series outlining the scope, the costs and the impact of Alzheimer's. To watch the video segment featuring O'Leary and Shriver, please follow this link.
O'Leary also spoke at the Center for American Progress' panel discussion, A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's, on Monday, October 18.
Berkeley CHEFS Research Fellow, Angela Clements, returned to University of Nebraska -Lincoln to talk about her experience as a Truman Scholar at UNL's Truman Day, November 8, 2010.
The Sacramento Bee, October 26, 2010, Stephen M. Shortell writes, "Prevention is the key to getting a handle on health care costs."
Berkeley Law Center Report Takes Aim at New State Budget Proposal. It finds that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget could have a negative impact on children, families, schools, communities, and the economy.
Publications
UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education and Berkeley CHEFS released the first in a series of policy briefs, "Maximizing Health Care Enrollment through Seamless Coverage for Families in Transition: Current Trends and Policy Implications," that discusses seamless health care insurance coverage for families lacking coverage due to a work or life transition. In this brief, Ken Jacobs, Laurel Lucia, Ann O'Leary and Ann Marie Marciarille review the literature on the prevalence of uninsurance caused by work or life transitions
Ann O'Leary co-authors a new publication, "A Guide To Implementing Paid Family Leave Lessons From California," released January 13, 2011 offering a primer on the nation’s first paid family leave program, implemented six years ago in California, and the do’s and don’ts other states should consider as they pursue similar proposals. The guide, from the Labor Project for Working Families and Berkeley CHEFS, sees California as a model for how Americans can juggle work and family responsibilities in the 21st century. Download the publication here. Click here to view video of the event.
On Thursday, December 2, the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic and Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) and the Georgetown Law’s Workplace Flexibility 2010 released a new report entitled, “Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation for Economic Security.” The report provides a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. Click here to read the report.
Berkeley CHEFS releases, Cutting Child Care Out from Under Californians. The California budget battle is continuing with no clear end in sight. To help patch a nearly $20 billion shortfall, the Governor proposed to cut $1.2 billion in child care funds, a move that would eliminate most subsidized child care. He also proposed to terminate California’s welfare program, CalWORKs, which serves 1.4 million people, 1.1 million of whom are children. Included in the CalWORKs cuts are child care subsidies for families receiving or successfully transitioned off welfare. In total, 240,000 children would lose access to subsidized child care. This paper outlines the impact these child care cuts would have on working parents, children, and the state's economy. Download the paper here.
In Gains, Gaps and New Choices: The Impact of the Affordable Care Act in California, Berkeley CHEFS focuses on the human face of health care reform: the millions of individuals and families who lack affordable insurance coverage. The report finds that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will go a long way toward filling coverage gaps in California and makes recommendations for further action. Download the brief here.
Mary Ann Mason comments on the academics love-hate relationship with e-mail in her recent Chronicle op-ed on Higher Education, "E-mail the Third Shift."
In the face of concerns over rising health care costs, the new health care reform law offers one answer: the Accountable Care Organization (ACO). The health care reform law encourages fee-for-service Medicare providers to create ACOs and also sets up a pediatric demonstration project. In Implementing Accountable Care Organizations, authors Stephen Shortell, Lawrence Casalino, and Elliott Fisher provide guidance to the federal government, states, and health care providers engaged in the work of developing ACOs. Download the brief here.
Mary Ann Mason writes, "America Should Compete for Women Scientists," an op-ed in Science Progress.
How Would Health Care Reform Impact California Senior Citizens? This issue brief analyzes how health care reform will impact senior citizens in California, and findings reveal that the Senate health reform bill and the reconciliation bill would lower out-of-pocket prescription costs for seniors in California, ensure greater access to primary care and preventive services, protect the solvency of Medicare, increase the options for long-term care, and protect the benefits of seniors eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal. Download the brief here.
Angela Clements publishes Sexual Orientation, Gender Nonconformity, and Trait-Based Discrimination: Cautionary Tales From Title VII & An Argument for Inclusion, in response to the debate surrounding the future of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Download the publication here.
Ann O'Leary and Heather Boushey, co-editors of the Shriver Report publish, Our Working Nation, How Working Women are Reshaping America's Families and Economy and What It Means for Policymakers. This policy roadmap is written in response to the plea for detailed, specific solutions that will help American workers and families meet the dual demands of work and family and, in turn, will strengthen our economy and the well-being of our families and our children. They outline a set of policies that address the needs of today's workers and working families as they really are, not as we imagine them to be. Download the Executive Summary here. Download the paper here.
In Addressing California’s Health Coverage Gaps: The Impact of National Health Care Reform, political scientist Annette Gardner, Berkeley CHEFS Associate Director Melissa Rodgers, and Berkeley Labor Center Chair Ken Jacobs focus on the human face of health care reform: the millions of individuals and families who lack affordable insurance coverage. The report analyzes how well the bills moving forward in Congress will succeed in filling coverage gaps in California and what effects the bills will have on California’s safety net system. Download the brief here.
Patching America's Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences. Mary Ann Mason and Karie Frasch report on the impact family leave policies have on women researchers in scientific fields. The report was a collaboration between Berkeley CHEFS and The Center for American Progress. The paper is available here.
The Costs and Benefits of a Public Option in Health Care Reform: An Economic Analysis. In the most recent brief in the Advancing National Health Reform series, economist Ethan Kaplan and Berkeley CHEFS Associate Director Melissa Rodgers argue that including a public option in health care reform is likely to generate greater benefits and cost savings to the American people than has been projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other independent analysts. Download the brief here.
Berkeley CHEFS Faculty Co-Director Stephen M. Shortell published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Primary Care and Accountable Care — Two Essential Elements of Delivery-System Reform. The article, by Diane R. Rittenhouse, Stephen M. Shortell, and Elliott S. Fisher discusses the “patient-centered medical home” (PCMH) and the “accountable care organization” (ACO), two models for delivery-system reform that take complementary approaches to improving the quality and coordination of health care and slowing the growth of spending. The article is available online.