Leaving Women Behind
Modern Families, Outdated Laws
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Paternalistic federal laws and regulations thwart initiatives to grant women the same economic liberties as men. Why have federal institutions overseeing employment, employee benefits, childcare, taxation, health care, education, retirement, and social security adopted such a warped and antiquated perspective of traditional family life? And what can be done about it? Leaving Women Behind answers these important and provocative questions. The authors call upon the federal government to get out of the way of marketplace initiatives. Employers and employees across the country are perfectly capable of making mutually beneficial adjustments if the government simply unties their hands. They offer realistic solutions; solutions that involve empowering people, giving them more choices, and making government less intrusive. Published in cooperation with The Manhattan Institute and The National Center for Policy Analysis.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Americans', and, in particular, women's, realities have changed dramatically since the heyday of federal labor and tax laws, and the laws haven't kept pace, the authors argue in this wonky book.. They survey the failings of Social Security, the welfare state, tax-exempt savings plans and other government-sponsored institutions; explain how the lack of child care, inflexible work hours and tax rates punish two-income couples and hold women back; and propose an array of reforms, many of which involve privatization or deregulation. Some of the book's suggestions-such as eliminating the estate tax or privatizing welfare programs-seem at best tangentially linked to women's problems, while the bullet points quickly become a bewildering tangle of details. After an introduction that seems geared to the general reader, the book becomes bogged down in the intricacies of, for instance, employee-sponsored benefits and self-insured healthcare. The authors, who include a former Halliburton executive and a Wall Street Journal editorial page writer, succeed in proving that conservatives can offer compelling solutions to women's issues. They don't, however, succeed in presenting those solutions in a reader-friendly format.
