Working parents may miss work to look for child care, to cover for a breakdown in care, or to care for a sick child. Employers can reduce family-related absences by providing on-site child care and referral services, improving the quality and reliability of community child care centers, or increasing parents' ability to afford better care. Allowing sick leave for family reasons does not reduce absenteeism, but it does reduce the tension associated with having to lie about the reason. There is evidence to suggest that these absences do not necessarily translate into lower productivity. Recommendations relating to the complicated relationship between work and family include: better measures, research tools, and methodologies; more pooling of firms' anonymous needs assessments; analysis of on-site centers' sick policies; research on parents who work nonstandard hours; work-family conflicts of welfare women with young children; and on the effects of work-family issues within different industries, different size companies, different regions of the country, and different income groups; and a mechanism for translating and disseminating this research to companies. (The paper includes an exhibit describing 16 studies of welfare women with young children; and on the effects of work-family issues of employer-supported child care, 5 data tables, and 50 references.) (CML)