Many workplaces are still structured around the outdated ideal of an employee who has a spouse at home taking care of the children and household needs—despite the fact that all adults work outside the home in 70% of all U.S. households. The result is a mismatch between the workplace and the workforce that causes problems for employees and employers alike.

The first to document family responsibilities discrimination (FRD), WorkLife Law (WLL) is also taking the lead on documenting the related phenomenon of flexible work bias. Flexibility bias mirrors and often overlaps with family responsibilities bias:  employees who work flexibly often encounter unspoken and unrecognized assumptions on the part of supervisors and co-workers about their commitment, dependability, worth, ambition, competence, availability, and suitability for promotion. Because of this, employees (and their employers) who could benefit from flexible work avoid doing so due to fear of career penalties. Unless employers and policymakers address flexible work bias, employees will not take advantage of even the most generous flexibility policies — because they do so at their peril.

When policymakers and advocates, at both the state and federal level, propose new leaves and other forms of workplace flexibility, they need to address the flexibility bias. WLL provides information and technical guidance to ensure that proposed public policy initiatives are workable for both employees and employers. WLL neither sponsors nor lobbies for any specific legislation. Instead, we provide information about flexible work bias and the costs associated with it. We also compile information on relevant case law and social scientific research.


Technical Guidance

WLL’s work with both employers and employees gives us a unique 360 degree perspective on the problem of flexible work bias, allowing us to provide feedback to those pursuing public policy solutions to make them workable, fair, and effective. Technical guidance to state and federal policymakers is provided by our experienced attorneys, some of whom have represented employers, and some of whom have represented employees or unions. For more information and assistance, contact Stephanie Bornstein at StephanieBornstein at worklifelaw dot org.

Reports & Publications

• NEW! - WLL Deputy Director Cynthia Thomas Calvert’s Testimony Before the Joint Economic Committee, Hearing on Balancing Work & Family in the Recession, July 23, 2009

• NEW! - WLL Director Joan C. Williams’ Letter to the Bipartisan U.S. Senate Workplace Flexibility Study Group, June 30, 2009  

• Report: Statutory Routes to Workplace Flexibility in Cross-National Perspective, by Ariane Hegewisch and Janet C. Gornick, Institute for Women's Policy Research and WorkLife Law, 2008

• Issue Brief: Litigating Flexibility, October 2007

• Issue Brief: Employers and European Flexible Working Rights: When the Floodgates Were Opened, by Arian Hegewisch, Fall 2005. 

WLL’s Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) has done significant research and work on how to create and implement flexible career paths in the legal profession that do not stigmatize those who take them. 

For additional resources, see our see our Links page.