Parental Work Schedules and Child Overweight or Obesity: Does Family Structure Matter?

• Published date: 01 October 2015
• Date: 01 October 2015
• Author: Daniel P. Miller,Jina Chang
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12215

D P. M  J C Boston University

Parental Work Schedules and Child Overweight

or Obesity: Does Family Structure Matter?

The authors used longitudinal data from the

Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

(N=5,482) to investigate whether maternal and

paternal work schedules affect child overweight

or obesity. They took the novelstep of examining

whether this effect is consistent for children liv-

ing in different family structures. Findings from

child xed effects models suggest that the prob-

ability of child overweight or obesity was higher

for children living with mothers who worked

standard shifts at a primary job and nonstandard

shifts at a secondary job compared to children

living with mothers who worked a standard shift

at a primary job only. Fathers’ work schedules

were not associated with child overweight or

obesity. Unexpectedly, maternal standard shift

work at a primary job and nonstandard shift

work at a secondary job was associated with

overweight or obesity only among children

living with married biological parents.

As the American economy continues to move

toward a 24/7 workforce (Presser, 2003), non-

standard employment (work that occurs out-

side traditional daytime hours) has increased.

Recent reports indicate that at least a fth of

working Americans are engaged in nonstandard

shift work, as is at least one adult in a third of

School of Social Work, Boston University, 264 Bay State

Rd., Boston, MA 02215 (dpmiller@bu.edu).

This article was edited by Robert Crosnoe.

Key Words: family,longitudinal study, marital status, mater-

nal employment, obesity, paternal employment.

dual-earner households (Alterman, Luckhaupt,

Dahlhamer, Ward, & Calvert, 2013; Dunifon,

Kalil, Crosby, Su, & DeLeire, 2013; McMe-

namin, 2007; Presser & Ward, 2011). Analyses

of a cohort of youth age 14–21 in 1978 found

that 9 out of 10 had worked at some type of

nonstandard shift by age 39 (Presser & Ward,

2011). Although a growing literature has investi-

gated the effects of nonstandard employment, its

impacts on the health and well-being of children

are not fully understood (Presser & Ward,2011).

Recently, a few studies have examined

whether maternal nonstandard shift work is

associated with child obesity (Champion et al.,

2012; Miller & Han, 2008; Morrissey, Dunifon,

& Kalil, 2011). Child obesity is one of the

major public health problems of the modern era,

and, like nonstandard employment, it became

increasingly common in the last 25 years of

the 20th century. Nearly one third of U.S. chil-

dren and adolescents are currently overweight

or obese, a rate that has remained essentially

unchanged in the past 10 years (Ogden, Carroll,

Kit, & Flegal, 2014). Obesity has serious impli-

cations for both concurrent and future health and

is thus a major indicator of overall well-being.

In this study, we examined the association

between parental work schedules and child

overweight or obesity. The study makes a num-

ber of contributions. First, we used detailed

information on work schedules for both moth-

ers and fathers as well as child overweight

and obesity, using data from the Fragile Fam-

ilies and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS;

http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/), a

predominantly low-income sample. Second, we

1266 Journal of Marriage and Family 77 (October 2015): 1266–1281

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12215

Parental Work Schedules and Child Obesity 1267

leveraged these longitudinal data to estimate the

relationship between parental work schedules

and child overweight or obesity in an effort to

reconcile inconsistent conclusions from previ-

ous work. Finally, we examined whether the

relationship between work schedules and over-

weight or obesity varies by family structure, an

important contribution given increasing family

complexity in the United States.

B

Parental Employment and Child Obesity

Beginning with the early and inuential work of

Anderson and colleagues (Anderson, Butcher, &

Levine, 2003), a number of studies have exam-

ined the link between maternal working hours

and child overweight or obesity. The majority

of these studies has found that the duration or

intensity of maternal employment is associated

with increased risk for overweight or obesity,

increased body mass index (BMI), or faster than

average BMI growth as children age (Benson

& Mokhtari, 2011; Coley & Lombardi, 2012;

Phipps, Lethbridge, & Burton, 2006; Ruhm,

2008; Scholder, 2008).

Both previous theory and research suggest

a number of different mechanisms by which

parental employment might affect obesity. Eco-

nomic models of parental work and household

routines suggest that parents make trade-offs

among paid work in the marketplace, work in the

home, and leisure time (Leibowitz, 2005). Each

additional hour spent in paid employment thus

reduces time in the home, with direct impacts

on routines and behaviors that have salience for

obesity. For example, parents who work longer

hours may not be able to devote the necessary

time to prepare meals at home and instead may

favor quicker or more convenient options, such

as dining out (Crepinsek & Burstein, 2004) or

the use of preprepared meals, both of which

are of poorer nutritional content than meals

prepared from scratch at home (French, Story,

& Jeffery, 2001). This effect may be more pro-

nounced if working parents opt to spend leisure

time with their children rather than in homemak-

ing activities (Monna & Gauthier, 2008). For

well-compensated workers, the opportunity cost

of paid employment may be particularly high,

further minimizing time at home or in leisure,

a nding supported by some previous research

that has found that maternal employment had

the greatest impact on child obesity in families

of higher socioeconomic status (Ruhm, 2008;

Ziol-Guest, Dunifon, & Kalil, 2012).

Other household routines also are plausible

mechanisms by which parental employment

may affect child obesity. If left to their own

devices while parents are working, children and

adolescents may opt for more television and

screen time, both of which have been linked to

increased risk for obesity (Crespo et al., 2001;

Dietz & Gortmaker, 1985). Similarly, parents

may require that unsupervised children remain

indoors because of fears for safety, limiting

opportunities for physical activity (Anderson,

2012). Last, parental employment may lead to

inconsistent or disrupted sleep if parents are not

able to supervise nighttime routines. A grow-

ing body of evidence suggests that shorter sleep

duration is associated with increased risk of obe-

sity in children (Chen, Beydoun, & Wang,2008).

The idea that household routines may be the

mechanisms connecting parental employment

and obesity suggests why the link between

maternal employment and child obesity has

been largely robust whereas previous research

on paternal employment has tended to nd no

impact (Morrissey et al., 2011; Phipps et al.,

2006; Ziol-Guest et al., 2012). Although fathers’

participation in household labor has increased

over time, mothers still bear the predominant

responsibility for household labor, including

child care and meal preparation (Benson &

Mokhtari, 2011; Craig & Mullan, 2010).

Nonetheless, Benson and Mokhtari (2011)

argued that researchers must consider the joint

employment of mothers and fathers given

the tendency for parents to make decisions

about family and employment routines together.

Notably, using data from the Child Development

Supplement from the Panel Study of Income

Dynamics, they found that hours of paternal

employment (but not maternal employment)

are signicantly associated with increased

BMI percentile. The authors interpreted this

nding as a result of greater potential returns

to time spent with children by fathers given

their lower overall share of responsibility for

household work; however,Benson and Mokhtari

did not account for why paternal employment

has not been linked to child obesity in much

other research. Morrissey (2013) found that the

combined duration of maternal and paternal

employment is associated with higher BMI z

scores across childhood and that the intensity of