Report onDependent Care Needs

Assessment SurveyTufts AS&E Committee on Faculty Work/Life

Prepared for Tufts AS&E Faculty MeetingFebruary 24, 2016

Background

Background

● Work/Life Committee established in fall 2013, succeeding Work/Life Balance Task Force. TF had recommended a dependent care needs survey.

● Work/Life Committee began work on survey in May 2014.● Survey conducted February and March 2015.● Survey was funded by Deans of Arts & Sciences & Engineering & the Fletcher

School and by the Provost’s office.● Approximately 33% response rate among full-time and part-time faculty, staff,

and graduate students on the Medford campus.● The only demographic category that is overrepresented is women.

Thanks to Associate Provost Dawn Terkla, Jessica Sharkness, and Rebecca Hatch of OIRE for their invaluable assistance in producing the report, as well as to Rachel Katz and Misti Jeffers for their contributions to the design, administration, and analysis of the survey.

Key Findings

Key challenges

● Childcare in the Boston area is extremely expensive.

○ DHHS considers child care "affordable" if it costs 10% or less of household income.

○ In Boston, child care is not "affordable": the median cost of child care is 19% of family income for those with children ages 4 – 8, and 29% for those with children under age 4.

○ Full-time infant care in Boston area costs $25,000 – $35,000 per year, so family income would have to exceed $131,000 to meet the median mark.

○ 45% of survey respondents had household incomes under $100,000; 68% of the respondents reported that finding affordable child care was difficult.

● Tufts offers no on-site infant and toddler care in Medford/Somerville.

Implications for retention, career development, and carrying out university mission

● Caring for children and adults impacts professional development for students, faculty, and staff.

○ Limited networking & academic-related activities

○ Limited travel

○ Cut back on professional aspirations

● Faculty, staff, and students with caregiving responsibilities lose significant amounts of work time because of conflicts between work/school duties and caregiving.

● More than 25% of faculty, staff, and student respondents with children under 12, and 15% of staff and faculty caring for adults, have considered leaving the university because of conflicts between caregiving and work.

While these issues affect a significant number of men, the burdens of childcare disproportionately affect women.

Disparate impact on faculty of color

● Faculty members of color were more likely than white faculty members to report that they had decided not to work towards a promotion (33% vs. 17%) due to child care conflicts.

● Faculty members of color were more likely than white faculty members to have adult care responsibilities (23% vs. 14%), and they were more likely to report they did not pursue a promotion as a result of these responsibilities (40% vs 10%).

Recommendations

Key short-term, low-cost solutions for child care and adult care challenges

1. Designate a dependent care specialist in Human Resources.

2. Raise awareness of existing services.

3. Review performance of existing vendors and either push the vendors for improvement or find new vendors. Revisit nature of Bright Horizons at Teele Square child care center contract, and plan ahead for 2019 contract expiration.

4. Negotiate agreements with area child care vendors to give Tufts affiliates discounts and/or priority access, as the university does with vendors for other services (e.g., Verizon).

Key medium & long-term recommendations for child care

1. Expand Tufts-affiliated summer vacation and school holiday offerings for school-age children

2. Develop provision of on-campus infant care and toddler care

3. Implement sliding-scale tuition for on-site child care for low-income employees and students, and/or portable child care subsidies or scholarships for families with under $125,000 household income

4. Make fundraising for dependent care a priority in the current capital campaign

Key medium-term recommendations for adult care

1. Access to professionals who can advise on local and long-distance adult care concerns

a. Support of daily living

b. Advise on matters including health care, Medicare enrollment, housing, finances

2. Support for caregivers

a. Legal advice

b. Respite care

c. Mental health support systems

Comparisons with Peer Institutions

Tufts has made some progress since 2012

Care.com backup care for children and adults

Brings us in line with our peers in providing access to a backup care program

Many peers subsidize care

Tufts still lags behind peer institutions in key dependent care supports

Areas in which Tufts’ supports are inadequate:

On-site infant and toddler care

Financial support for child care

Holistic set of supports for adult care

Tufts does not support infant and toddler care, while most of our peers do

Number of On-Site Child Care Slots at Peer and Boston-Area Institutions

Competitor institutions provide a wide variety of financial subsidies for child care, while Tufts provides none

Lack of dependent care support decreases Tufts’ competitiveness

In the areas of:

- recruitment

- retention

- research

- development of faculty careers

- diversity of our university community, especially with regard to gender equity

If you have questions, please contact any member of the AS&E Committee on Faculty Work/Life

Faculty members: Administrative members:Laurie Baise Barbara BrizuelaAmahl Bishara Margery DaviesH. Adlai Murdoch Mary FosterBarbara Parmenter June GoldsteinElizabeth RemickAnna Sajina

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Supplementary Material

Relationship of on-campus child care center to university

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