Are you really going to make the case that people with children are more likely to dump work on people without children? Really?
Do you have any sort of actual evidence to support this? (Actual evidence, not anecdotal stories about how somebody with a kid made you do more work on a project once)
Can't speak for the previous poster, but my company has a strict policy - people with children get first consideration for time off. When there is inclement weather, they're the first sent home to take care of their children. When there is extra work to be done, the person with children is the first to be exempt from overtime.
So at my company there is a very strict policy about this, and it gets followed to a T.
It's all anecdotal because no sane company would allow stats on giving the pager to the single person because it won't disturb someone's kids.
I have worked at a place where I got the support pager on a holiday because I was single. I have also had to do support in the middle of the night because the person with children didn't answer because he set the volume low (so as not to disturb his wife) and didn't wake-up.
To be fair, family problems (kid is sick, picking up Junior from soccer practice) are much more likely to be excused absences than other lifestyle problems (I have a date the night before, chores are piling up, I have roommate issues).
I personally wouldn't call that 'dumping work', but parents with young kids do require more days off due to sickness, because you're off also on days when you're okay but your kids are sick.
Anecdotally, they also seem to get sick more (kindergartens as vectors for spreading flu? sleep-deprivation lowered immunity? just guessing), but the first part is obviously true.
Do you have any sort of actual evidence to support this? (Actual evidence, not anecdotal stories about how somebody with a kid made you do more work on a project once)