Mothers' Work Schedules, Children's Time with Parents, and Child Development

Background/Purpose: Large increases in maternal employment coupled with strong growth in the service sector, rise in the “24/7” economy, and increase in nonstandard jobs during the latter half of the 20^th century have raised concerns about the potential negative effects of mothers’ nonstandard work schedules on child wellbeing. Prior research finds that mothers’ nonstandard work schedules are associated with worse child cognitive and behavioral outcomes (Li et al., 2014), and a key hypothesized mechanism of this relationship is the amount and quality of time children spend with their parents. Yet, our understanding of how mothers’ work schedules matter for children’s time with parents is limited because, due to data limitations, prior studies have been unable to examine how mothers’ work schedules are associated with the amount of time a child spends with each parent. This is important because mothers’ time and fathers’ time may act as substitutes such that when mothers work nonstandard schedules fathers spend more time with children (Presser, 1988). This study contributes to existing research by using unique children’s time-diary data to estimate associations between mothers’ work schedules and children’s time with each parent, as well as the associations between mothers’ schedules and children’s developmental outcomes.

Methods: I use data from the 2014 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)—Child Development Supplement, which collected in-depth information on a subset of PSID children (N=1241), including direct assessments of children’s cognitive skills, indirect assessments of children’s behavior problems, and children’s time diaries. I use time-diary data to create measures of the total amount of time per week that children spend engaged with their parents, as well as by the type of activity (e.g., educational). Mothers self-reported their usual work hours and schedule: 32% of mothers were not employed, 54% worked a standard daytime schedule, and 14% worked a nonstandard schedule (i.e., evening, night, irregular schedule).

Results: Descriptive analyses show few differences in children’s engaged time with parents by mothers’ work schedules overall, but significant differences exist among key sub-groups. Children whose mothers worked nonstandard versus daytime schedules spent more hours per week engaged with their mother in two-parent families, whereas these children spent fewer hours engaged with their mother in single-parent families. Mothers’ schedules mattered most for young children: 0-5 year-olds spent fewer hours engaged with their father—and less total time with both parents—when their mother worked a nonstandard versus daytime schedule. Also, children whose mothers worked nonstandard schedules exhibited more internalizing behavior problems. Subsequent regression analyses will estimate associations between mothers’ work schedules and child outcomes adjusting for a robust set of child and family characteristics, and examine whether children’s engaged time with parents explains these associations.

Implications: Findings will provide new evidence on the mechanisms through which mothers’ nonstandard work schedules matter for children’s development. This has important implications for labor market regulations, like fair scheduling laws, that allow workers the right to request scheduling accommodations and for social work interventions that can mitigate detrimental effects of nonstandard schedules on children and parents.