Session: Implications of Workplace Flexibility and Child Care Stability for Families with Young Children (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Characteristics of employment and child care arrangements can either help or hinder parents’ efforts to balance work and caregiving needs and in turn, have implications for child and family wellbeing.  In particular, workplace flexibility has been associated with less work-family conflict and lower parenting stress (Michel et al., 2011; Nomaguchi & Johnson, 2014).  With regard to child care arrangements, stable care is associated with greater job stability and more positive child wellbeing (Hofferth & Collins, 2000; Pilarz & Hill, 2014).  The three papers in this symposium further knowledge on efforts to support working parents with young children. The first two papers focus on the implications of workplace flexibility for parental relationship quality, parent-child interactions, and children’s behavior.  The third paper focuses on the contributors to and implications of child care instability. Each study pays particular attention to the experiences of socio-economically disadvantaged workers, who may be least likely to have access to flexible jobs and stable care.  Findings from these studies have important implications for work-family policies aimed at improving parental employment outcomes, child care settings, and children’s development. Key policy implications will be discussed.   

Using nationally-representative data, the first paper finds that workplace flexibility—including flexible schedules, working at home, and part-time employment—is associated with better relationship quality among couples and more frequent parent-child interactions.  Positive associations between flexibility and parent-child interactions were stronger among higher- versus lower-income parents, suggesting that families with more economic resources may benefit more.

The second paper estimates associations between mothers’ perceived workplace inflexibility and child behavior problems, using data from an urban, birth cohort study. Results suggest that children whose mothers reported high levels of workplace inflexibility exhibited increases in behavior problems relative to children whose mothers were not employed or reported low levels of inflexibility.  These associations were more pronounced among single-mother families.  Findings suggest that improving workplace flexibility may benefit children’s socioemotional development.

The third paper employs a mixed methods design to examine factors that contribute to child care instability as well as how parents assess their preparedness for a care change, in terms of whether it was (un)planned and (un)desired. The study uses survey and qualitative interview data from a study of child care subsidy clients in two states. Multivariate survey results show that short subsidy spells and job loss were associated with higher risk of leaving a subsidized provider, whereas measures of parents’ satisfaction with the provider and provider flexibility were associated with a lower risk. Analyses of qualitative interviews mirrored these findings and suggest that parents experienced varying levels of preparedness for care changes.  Most families who experienced a provider change also experienced changes in other domains, including employment, subsidy receipt, and housing, which oftentimes forced a sudden, undesirable change. Problems with providers contributed to sudden, but sometimes desired, care changes. Findings will be discussed in light of recent changes to the subsidy program that aim to improve the quality and stability of care for low-income families.