An Assessment of Dependent Care Needs of Federal Workers Using the Office of Personnel Management's Survey

Recognizing the changing demographics of the federal workforce--significant portions of the workforce are aging, facing the need to care for elderly parents, and are or will be retiring, and in turn likely to be replaced by a younger workforce with child care needs--the Congress was interested in understanding the dependent care needs of the federal workforce and to what extent employees were using or could use federal programs and benefits designed to help meet these needs. We have previously reported that work-life programs, such as alternative flexible work schedules and child care centers and assistance, are viewed by agency officials as being among the most effective programs used to help manage their workforce. In response to these trends, the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations, included a mandate in its Conference Report 108-792 directing GAO to: (1) provide technical assistance to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the General Services Administration (GSA) in their efforts to gather data on federal employee child care needs and analyze options to meet those needs, and (2) review the data and analysis generated and provide the results to the Committees. This letter and enclosure is our response to this mandate. More specifically, they provide our analysis of results from a survey of federal employees, which OPM developed and administered, that address: (1) the extent of dependent care needs reported by these employees, and (2) the ways in which these employees currently meet those needs, including the use of certain federally-sponsored programs and flexibilities intended to help address child and adult dependent care needs.