This is a news release from the Center For Policy Alternatives.

Washington, DC -- Sixty-three percent of mothers of small children and seventy-eight percent of mothers of school-aged children work outside the home as the nation celebrates Mother's Day 1999, according to estimates compiled by the Center for Policy Alternatives (CPA). Working mothers are increasingly likely to be primary caregivers for aging parents and relatives as well as children.

"It's great that working mothers have so many options open to them as we celebrate Mother's Day 1999, but it's also high time we formally recognize how tough it is to balance family and work," said Center for Policy Alternatives President and CEO Linda Tarr-Whelan. "Caregiving in our society has been invisible for too long. We can help working mothers through flexible work policies, quality and affordable child care, adequate compensation for the people who care for our children while we work and other programs which quantify the value we place on caregiving."

"Today we are seeing an unprecedented number of women nurturing older relatives and young children while at the same time financially supporting their families," said Tarr-Whelan. In releasing state-by-state data, CPA notes that resources vary tremendously from state to state. "Where you live determines what help exists for working mothers and caregivers to juggle successfully," she added.

Nationally, 63 percent of working mothers have children under age six. In Nebraska, 71 percent of working mothers have pre-school aged children - the highest in the U.S. In West Virginia, only 48 percent of mothers of small children work outside the home - a national low.

Child care workers, depended upon by many working mothers for child care outside the home, are rarely paid in accordance with the invaluable service they provide for families. On average, child care workers make less than people who cut hair or trim hedges. Nationally, child care workers make 63 percent of wages for other workers. In Maine, wages for child care workers are 70 percent of the average state wage; in Pennsylvania, the figure is only 55 percent.

"Closing the gap of care is long overdue and vital to family security," reports Anne Mosle, Vice President for Women's Policy and Programs at CPA. "We're moving away from the 'sandwich generation' to the 'whopper generation' as middle-aged women caring for children and parents take on the added responsibility of young people moving back home, often with their own children, and elderly relatives who need care. It's time for an economic agenda that invests in and recognizes the many roles and contributions that women make in the home, workplace and community."

Working families frequently look to expanded public school day programs to provide supplemental care for school-aged children while mothers work to support their families. In Hawaii, 75 percent of public schools offer expanded day programs; in Nebraska and South Dakota, however, only 5 percent of public schools do so.

As the elderly population in the U.S. grows with the aging of baby boomers and advances in medical science, eldercare becomes increasingly critical. Nationally, the caregiving provided by informal, unpaid caregivers was worth $196 billion in 1997 - primarily in care for older, chronically ill people, estimates the Alzheimer's Association. In California, services informal caregivers provide were worth an estimated $22,914,000,000; in Wyoming the figure was $344,000,000. This calculation is based on the number of hours people spent in informal, unpaid caregiving and an average of the minimum wage and the hourly wage for home health care workers.

These indicators, notes Tarr-Whelan, illustrate both the invisibility of caregiving and the need to support the people who care for our families. "This data is a wake-up call. It's time to support working mothers and caregivers caring for families, not penalize them," she said.

CPA is the nation's leading non-profit, non-partisan policy and leadership development organization working to move ideas to action across the fifty states. CPA works with women leaders across the states to advance a women-led Economic Agenda for America based on economic self-sufficiency, health and security, entrepreneurship and family and work.

Go to State by State Data from C.P.A.