Scheduling challenges among workers in low-wage hourly jobs: similarities and differences among workers in standard- and nonstandard-hour jobs

Work schedules are a central theme in the work–family challenges of low-wage hourly workers. Yet, research on scheduling patterns among this worker population has primarily focused on nonstandard schedules. We know very little about the scheduling patterns of workers in hourly jobs with standard fixed schedules. Knowledge about the key scheduling challenges by schedule type is necessary to develop targeted workplace solutions, such as flexible work arrangements, to enhance work–life fit among workers in low-wage hourly jobs. Using the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, bivariate and multivariate analyses were employed to determine (1) the prevalence of rigid, unpredictable and unstable work schedules among low-wage hourly workers employed in jobs with standard and nonstandard schedules and whether there is variation in these scheduling practices among full- and part-time workers; and (2) the individual or job characteristics that influence the odds of experiencing rigid, unpredictable or unstable work schedules. Results indicate that rigid and unpredictable schedule practices are most prevalent among low-wage hourly workers in full-time standard-hour jobs and part-time nonstandard-hour jobs, while unstable scheduling practices are most prevalent among hourly workers in full- and part-time nonstandard-hour jobs. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed.     

Unsociable Work? Nonstandard Work Schedules,Family Relationships,and Children’s Well‐Being

Many children live in families where one or both parents work evenings, nights, or weekends. Do these work schedules affect family relationships or well‐being? Using cross‐sectional survey data from dual‐earner Canadian families (N= 4,306) with children aged 2 – 11 years (N= 6,156), we compared families where parents worked standard weekday times with those where parents worked nonstandard schedules. Parents working nonstandard schedules reported worse family functioning, more depressive symptoms, and less effective parenting. Their children were also more likely to have social and emotional difficulties, and these associations were partially mediated through family relationships and parent well‐being. For some families, work in the 24‐hour economy may strain the well‐being of parents and children.     

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 novel step of examining whether this effect is consistent for children living in different family structures. Findings from child fixed effects models suggest that the probability 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.     

Nonstandard Schedules and Young Children’s Behavioral Outcomes Among Working Low‐Income Families

This article focuses on how maternal employment in nonstandard schedules at night, on the weekends, or that rotate on a weekly basis influence preschoolers’ behavioral outcomes. Examining low‐income working mothers and their children aged 2 – 4 years from the Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three‐City Study (N= 206), we find that maternal nonstandard schedules are associated with negative behavioral outcomes for young children. There is some evidence that the negative effects of nonstandard schedules on behavior problems operate indirectly through increased parenting stress. Moderating influences of child gender and family composition are also detected. These findings are consistent with the small number of studies demonstrating the negative effects of nonstandard schedules on children of varying ages.     

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Private Safety Nets Among Working Mothers

Although the implications of nonstandard work schedules (work outside of the typical 9 – 5, Monday – Friday schedule) for individuals and families are increasingly well understood, it is unclear how such schedules are associated with perceived social support for working mothers. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a variety of methodological approaches, we found mixed evidence for this relationship. Results from ordinary least squares and propensity‐weighted models suggest that working a nonstandard schedule is associated with weaker perceived support, particularly among those who are Black and less educated, and those who exclusively work such a schedule. Conversely, results from fixed‐effects models suggest that changing from a standard to a nonstandard schedule is associated with modest increases in perceived social support. These results add nuance to our understanding of the implications of nonstandard work schedules for families.     

Child care assistance and nonstandard work schedules

Child care is a necessary work support for many American families, but can be prohibitively expensive for those with low incomes. The federal government provides assistance through direct child care subsidies, but only a fraction of eligible families are in receipt. One factor that may limit access to child care assistance is work schedule. Research suggests that mothers with nonstandard work schedules use relative care more and day care centers less than those with standard work schedules. Research also shows that child care subsidies are disproportionately used for day care centers. This suggests that mothers who work nonstandard schedules may be less likely to receive child care assistance, but little empirical work addresses this question directly. Using data from a cohort of urban, unmarried mothers, this study explores the direct and indirect relationship between work schedule and receipt of child care assistance. The findings suggest that nonstandard work schedules reduce the odds of receiving child care assistance; a relationship mediated entirely by less day care center use among nonstandard schedule workers. The results imply that more flexible child care assistance is needed to meet the needs of these workers, possibly provided outside of the direct-subsidy system.     

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Partnership Quality: Quantitative and Qualitative Findings

This article questions existing findings and provides new evidence about the consequences of nonstandard work schedules on partnership quality. Using quantitative couple data from The Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) (N = 3,016) and semistructured qualitative interviews (N = 34), we found that, for women, schedules with varying hours resulted in greater relationship dissatisfaction than for men. Men with young children who worked varying hours had less relationship conflict and spent more time with children. Parents used nonstandard schedules for tag‐team parenting or to maintain perceptions of full‐time motherhood. The lack of negative effects, particularly for night shifts, suggests that previous findings—largely U.S. ones—are not universal and may be attributed to wider cultural, industrial relations, and economic contexts.     

Nonstandard parental employment schedules and father involvement

This study assesses the impact of nonstandard employment schedules (shift work) on parenting among US fathers of young children in dual-earner couples. The outcomes examined include total caregiving, caregiving without the mother present, and the elements of father involvement proposed by Pleck: positive engagement, warmth, and control. Models with latent variables and with lagged dependent variables are estimated using three waves of nationally representative data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort. The results indicate that employment scheduling mainly shapes the context in which involvement takes place. Compared to dual-earner couples who are each employed during the day, fathers in couples in which at least one parent has a nonstandard schedule tend to care for their children more in the mother's absence. To a more limited extent, they also do more caregiving overall. These effects are most conclusively found when the father works during the day and the mother works during the evening, when the mother works during the day but the father works a night, split, rotating, or other shift, and when both parents have nonstandard schedules. Parental work schedules, however, have little impact on father involvement aside from care.     

Parents' Family Time and Work Schedules: The Split‐Shift Schedule in Spain

This study used data on couples from the 2003 Spanish Time Use Survey (N = 1,416) to analyze how work schedules are associated with family, couple, parent–child, and non‐family leisure activities. Spain is clearly an interesting case for the institutionalized split‐shift schedule, a long lunch break rooted in the traditional siesta that splits the workday between morning and evening. Results showed strong negative associations between the split shift and both family and parent–child activities. The evening shift was negatively associated with couple and family time, but not with parent–child time. Women spent much more time than men in parent–child activities for all work categories, and they were more responsive to the spouse's work hours. Men were substantially more active than women in non‐family leisure, considering both individuals' and their spouses' work schedules. Altogether, this study has important implications for scientific and public policy debates.     

Work Hours,Schedules, and Insufficient Sleep Among Mothers and Their Young Children

Studies have linked parents' employment, work hours, and work schedules to their own sleep quality and quantity, but it is unclear whether these associations extend to children. The authors used data from the 5‐year in‐home survey of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,818) to examine the associations between maternal work hours and schedule and insufficient sleep among disadvantaged mothers and their young children. They found that mothers who worked more than 35 hours per week were more likely to experience insufficient sleep compared to mothers who worked fewer hours, whereas children were more likely to experience insufficient sleep when their mothers worked between 20 and 40 hours. Nonstandard work schedules were associated with an increased likelihood of insufficient sleep for mothers but not their children. The results highlight a potentially difficult balance between work and family for many disadvantaged working mothers in the United States.     

Nonstandard Work Schedules,Perceived Family Well‐Being,and Daily Stressors

Data from two studies assessed the effects of nonstandard work schedules on perceived family well‐being and daily stressors. Study 1, using a sample of employed, married adults aged 25 – 74 (n = 1,166) from the National Survey of Midlife in the United States, showed that night work was associated with perceptions of greater marital instability, negative family‐work, and work‐family spillover than weekend or daytime work. In Study 2, with a subsample of adults (n = 458) who participated in the National Study of Daily Experiences, weekend workers reported more daily work stressors than weekday workers. Several sociodemographic variables were tested as moderators. Both studies demonstrated that nonstandard work schedules place a strain on working, married adults at the global and daily level.     

Enough Time for Housework? Low‐Wage Work and Desired Housework Time Adjustments

Although studies examine preferences for hours spent in paid employment, little attention has been given to preferences for hours spent in unpaid household labor. This study examines the extent to which women working in low‐paid retail jobs would prefer to spend more or less time on household work and how alignment between preferred and actual time on housework is related to characteristics of paid work. Using original survey data and company records on a sample of women working at a U.S. retail firm (N = 277), the authors found that mismatch between preferred and actual time on household work was common. Roughly 42% wanted more time on household work and 18% wanted less. Working multiple jobs, work schedule unpredictability, and nonstandard work timing contributed to wanting more time on housework. Findings add to understanding of how low‐wage, precarious employment shapes workers' ability to attend to necessary tasks of household management.     

Crossover of resources and well-being within employee-partner dyads: through increased schedule control

ABSTRACT

This study examined whether one partner’s additional resources obtained from a workplace intervention influence the other partner’s perception of having those resources at home (crossover of resources). We also examined whether one partner’s decreased stress by increased work resources crosses over to the other partner’s stress levels (crossover of well-being). Longitudinal data came from IT employees and their married/cohabiting partners in midlife (N?=?327). A randomized workplace intervention significantly increased employee-reported schedule control at the 6-month follow-up, which, in turn, increased partner-reported employees’ work schedule flexibility to handle family responsibilities at the 12-month follow-up. The intervention also decreased partners’ perceived stress at the 12-month follow-up through the processes by which increases in schedule control predicted decreases in employees’ perceived stress, which further predicted decreased levels of partners’ perceived stress. Notably, crossover of resources and well-being were found in couples who lived with children in the household, but not in couples without children. Our findings suggest that benefits of workplace support can permeate into the family domain, by increasing partner-perceived family resources and well-being.     

Family Roles as Moderators of the Relationship Between Schedule Flexibility and Stress

Employer initiatives that address the spillover of work strain onto family life include flexible work schedules. This study explored the mediating role of negative work–family spillover in the relationship between schedule flexibility and employee stress and the moderating roles of gender, family workload, and single‐parent status. Data were drawn from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, a nationally representative sample of working adults (N = 2,769). The results indicated that schedule flexibility was associated with less employee stress and that these associations were mediated by perceptions of negative work–family spillover. This study found the moderating relationships of gender, family workload, and single parenting in the relationships between schedule flexibility and negative work–family spillover and stress. Schedule flexibility had stronger relationships in reducing negative work–family spillover and stress among women, single parents, and employees with heavier family workloads. The findings provide empirical support for intervention efforts involving schedule flexibility to reduce workplace stress among employees with family responsibilities.     

Paternal Work Stress and Latent Profiles of Father–Infant Parenting Quality

The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine the implications of fathers' experiences of work stress for paternal behaviors with infants across multiple dimensions of parenting in a sample of fathers living in nonmetropolitan communities (N = 492). LPA revealed five classes of fathers based on levels of social–affective behaviors and linguistic stimulation measured during two father–infant interactions. Multinomial logistic regression analyses suggested that a less supportive work environment was associated with fathers' membership in multiple lower quality parenting classes. Greater work pressure and a nonstandard work schedule also predicted fathers' membership in the latent parenting classes, although these associations differed depending on the number of hours fathers spent in the workplace.     

Career Patterns and Family Status of Women and Men Artists

These observations are often made about women's career outcomes: (a) women, as compared to men, do not experience career outcomes that are consistent with their training and abilities, and (b) interruptions in women's careers are linked to marriage and children. The current study examined whether these patterns applied to women in art who may have more flexible paid work schedules. Women (N = 109), who trained in art, were compared to their male classmates (N = 99) 18 years after art school. Career patterns, midlife occupations, marital status, and number of children were examined. No gender differences were noted in midlife occupations, however, women experienced significantly more career discontinuity than men, and women with discontinuous careers had significantly more children than women in continuous patterns.     

Cohabiting and Married Individuals' Relations With Their Partner's Parents

Using Norwegian survey data on partnered individuals ages 18 to 55 (N = 4,061; 31% cohabitors), the current study investigated differences across marital and cohabiting unions regarding the patterns of contact with the parents of the partner. In addition to investigating the frequency of such contact, we assessed the nature of and perceived quality of contacts with the partner's parents. The authors grouped respondents according to whether they had children with their partner and controlled for a range of selection characteristics. Results confirmed that parents with preschool children met their in‐laws more frequently than the childless, irrespective of union type. Married respondents as well as cohabitors with preschool children reported better relations with their partner's parents than childless cohabitors. Taken together, the results imply that having small children was more decisive for the relationship with the parents of the partner than getting married, particularly with regard to contact frequency.     

Family Structure, Gender, and the Work–Family Interface: Work-to-Family Conflict Among Single and Partnered Parents

This study examined whether single parents experience greater reductions in work-to-family conflict from using resources than partnered parents do. The question of whether single mothers, single fathers, partnered mothers, or partnered fathers experienced differing levels of work-to-family conflict was also addressed. Data were from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, and only those respondents with at least one child under the age of 18 living in the household were included in the analysis (N = 1325). Findings indicated that single-parent status was not directly related to work-to-family conflict. Rather single-parent status interacted with other variables, including gender, control over work hours, and the number of other adults in the home, in predicting work-to-family conflict.     

Involuntary vs. voluntary flexible work: insights for scholars and stakeholders

ABSTRACT

Building on insights from the early stages of our research partnership with a U.S. Fortune 500 organization, we came to differentiate between voluntary and involuntary schedule variability and remote work. This differentiation underscores the complexity behind flexible schedules and remote work, especially among white-collar, salaried professionals. We collected survey data among the partner firm's information technology (IT) workforce to evaluate whether these forms of flexibility had different implications for workers, as part of the larger Work, Family, and Health Network Study. We find that a significant minority of these employees report working variable schedules and working at home involuntarily. Involuntary variable schedules are associated with greater work-to-family conflict, stress, burnout, turnover intentions, and lower job satisfaction in models that adjust for personal characteristics, job, work hours, family demands, and other factors. Voluntary remote work, in contrast, is protective and more common in this professional sample. Employees working at least 20% of their hours at home and reporting moderate or high choice over where they work have lower stress and intentions to leave the firm. These findings point to the importance of both stakeholders and scholars distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary forms of flexibility, even in a relatively advantaged workforce.     

Women's Engagement in Pubic Hair Removal: Motivations and Associated Factors

Objectives: To examine the relationship between women's pubic hair removal (PHR) and genital satisfaction and explore whether attitudes toward, and personal consumption of, pornography are associated with women's engagement in PHR. Methods: Data were collected by online survey from women (N = 152) who were then categorized into groups based on the prevalence and extent of PHR during the previous 4 weeks. Groups were compared on demographic, background, and behavioral variables. Results: Eighty-three percent of respondents reported PHR in the previous 4 weeks and 40% of respondents removed all their pubic hair. Women who were younger, White, and were more satisfied with their genitals were more likely to engage in PHR. Of these, being younger, not having a degree, reporting less positive attitudes toward erotica, and 3 reasons for PHR predicted extensive PHR over limited removal. Conclusions: Findings provide insights into the reasons for, and extent of, PHR among women and factors associated with the practice. The possible influences of partners' preferences for genital hair removal by women and partners' consumption of pornography are important areas for future research.