Parental Work Schedules and Child‐Care Arrangements in Low‐Income Families
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12505 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
P H Princeton University
Parental Work Schedules and Child-Care
Arrangements in Low-Income Families
Objective: This study analyzes the relation-
ships between parental working schedules and
several aspects of child-care arrangements for
young children in low-income single-mother
and two-partner households.
Background: Children whose parents work
nonstandard schedules may hold child-care
arrangements that are less stimulating or devel-
opmentally productive than their peers whose
parents work standard schedules. This study
builds on previous research by expanding the
set of outcomes under analysis, accounting
for coscheduling in two-partner households,
revising traditional shift denitions, and using
recent, nationally representative data.
Method: The 2012 National Survey of Early
Care and Education is used to develop work
schedule typologies. Regression methods are
employed to evaluate the relationships between
these schedules and the use of center-based,
home-based, and relative care; continuity of
care; and complexity of care (a new mea-
sure introduced as an alternative to care
multiplicity).
Results: Nonstandard schedules are associ-
ated with increased child-care complexity and
decreased continuity and the types of care
that children receive in single-mother house-
holds but less so in two-partner households. In
two-partner households the largest effects are
Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Wallace
Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 (phepburn@princeton.edu).
Key Words: child care, employment, family structure,
inequalities, low-income families, work–family issues.
in households in which both partners work stan-
dard schedules; children in these households
receive more nonparental care and are in more
complex child-care arrangements.
Conclusion: Findings point to the cumulative
disadvantage accruing to the children of sin-
gle mothers, especially those working nontradi-
tional shifts.
Implications: Labor market inequalities yield
consequences for children’s development and
intergenerational stratication.
Working conditions matter for families as well
as for workers themselves. During the past
several decades, as labor protections have weak-
ened and working conditions have deteriorated
by a number of standards—including safety,
compensation, and scheduling—researchers
have explored how aspects of work may affect
those to whom employees are connected. Partic-
ular attention has been paid to the consequences
of evening- and night-shift schedules—referred
to here as nonstandard schedules—for workers’
children, including effects on their child-care
arrangements, which have been found to be
less stimulating or developmentally productive
(Han, 2004; Kimmel & Powell, 2006). Pre-
vious research has demonstrated associations
between maternal nonstandard work schedules
and increased use of coparental, relative, and
home-based care; decreased use of center-based
care; and increases in the number of care
providers employed (Enchautegui, Johnson,
& Gelatt, 2015; Han, 2004, 2005; Kimmel &
Powell, 2006; Presser, 2003).
Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1187–1209 1187
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12505
1188 Journal of Marriage and Family
This research, however, leaves a number
of issues unresolved. First, although this lit-
erature has been primarily concerned with
questions of what types of care parents select
(i.e., home-based, center-based, or relative care),
the literature on child care and children’s devel-
opment suggests that attention also be paid to
other characteristics of child-care arrangements,
such as complexity and continuity of care. Sec-
ond, most of the research on child-care choice
deals with work schedules of only one parent,
typically the mother, ignoring the potentially
exacerbating or moderating effects of the other
parent’s schedule (if they are present in the
household). Third, research to date has relied
almost exclusively on traditional shift deni-
tions and has failed to explore the emergence
and effects of new working schedules. Finally,
all previous analyses of these questions rest on
data collected in the early 1990s or earlier. It is
unclear whether the same relationships continue
to hold in the current day.
I employ the 2012 National Survey of Early
Care and Education (NSECE) to analyze the
relationships between parental work schedules
and the type, complexity, and continuity of child
care for young children in low-income house-
holds. Analysis is restricted to single-mother
and heterosexual two-partner households with
children younger than age 5 who fall below
200% of the poverty line. Households with
children younger than school age are typically
in greatest need of care, and those living at
or below the poverty line represent the most
vulnerable population. They are also the pop-
ulation whose members are most likely to
work a nontraditional schedule (Enchautegui,
2013; Hamermesh, 2002; Presser, 2003). Rather
than impose increasingly ill-suited, traditional
shift denitions, I derive work schedules from
detailed scheduling data using sequence anal-
ysis and clustering techniques not previously
applied in this literature. I show how these
work schedules are associated with the use of
home-based, center-based, and relative care; the
overall complexity of child-care arrangements;
and the continuity of child care. As used here,
home-based care refers to regular, paid care pro-
vided by an individual who does not have a prior
relationship with the child; center-based care is
regular, organizational care; and relative care is
regular care provided by a family or household
member of the child. Care complexity, as intro-
duced here, is a new measure and represents
an alternative to care multiplicity. Multiplicity
has typically been operationalized as a count of
how many nonparental care providers a child
has (or a binary indicator of having more than
one). Care complexity, by contrast, exploits the
richness of the NSECE data to account for the
number, ordering, and variation in time spent
with each unique care provider (Aisenbrey &
Fasang, 2010; Elzinga, 2006, 2010; Elzinga &
Liefbroer, 2007). In two-partner households, I
take the work schedules of both partners into
account; this is the rst study to consider the
effects of two-partner scheduling on child-care
arrangements. This is also the rst academic
study to explore these questions with data col-
lected in the wake of either welfare reform or
the Great Recession.
The results indicate that work schedules were
strongly associated with care arrangements in
single-mother households. Young children of
low-income single mothers working nonstan-
dard schedules—relative to their peers whose
mothers work standard schedules—received
signicantly more relative care and less
home-based care, and their care arrangements
were more complex and in place for shorter
periods. Many of the same conclusions held
for the children of single mothers working
nontraditional “off-standard” shifts, a new class
of schedules that emerges in analysis. Work
schedules appeared to play a less signicant role
in shaping care arrangements in two-partner
households, however. The protective effects of
a second partner appeared to reduce the effects
of nonstandard work. The largest results are
found in households wherein both partners work
a standard schedule; young children in such
households had signicantly more complex care
arrangements that included more of all three
types of care.
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C-C A
Before delving into theory and presenting
hypotheses, it is important to introduce the
multiple aspects of child-care arrangements
analyzed here, describe the developmental con-
sequences of such arrangements, and dene
nonstandard work schedules.
Parents turn to a number of sources for the
care of their young children. The literature
on child care generally divides care into three
broad types: center-based, home-based, and
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