Children: The Unseen Stakeholders at Work

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/0045-3609.00039
• Author: Stewart D. Friedman
• Date: 01 March 1999
• Published date: 01 March 1999

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Children:

The Unseen Stakeholders at Work

STEWART D. FRIEDMAN

There are a number of ways in which a parent’s work affects

his or her children. This ought to be a more important point

of focus for the efforts by firms to create both economic and

social value in society. As employees, corporations, and the govern-

ment all grapple with balancing work and family, how children are

affected by the quality of their parents’ work lives remains largely

unexplored. In a research study about the work and family lives of

alumni from both The Wharton School and Drexel University, Jeff

Greenhaus and I observed that the design of work and the manage-

ment of careers influence how the next generation fares.

For example, children had better health if their parents had

authority and control over their work. Having responsibility for

determining how, when, and where work is done may be the right

medicine for today’s working parents, giving them opportunities

they need to pick up a sick child at school, take the child to the doc-

tor’s, or to stay at home when the child is sick.

Also, we found that working mothers who are involved in

network-building activities at work—conferences, lunches, career

development and so on—tend to have children with fewer health

problems. And fathers who can structure their work lives on a

day-to-day basis to accommodate family needs also had children

with fewer health problems.

A child’s psychological health is also affected. Children had fewer

behavior problems if their mothers had control over their work and

© 1999 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College. Published by Blackwell Publishers,

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK.

Stewart D. Friedman is a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Business and Society Review 104:1 53–56