Mothers' Work Schedules and Children's Participation in Center-Based Early Care and Education

Background and Purpose: Children’s participation in center-based early care and education (ECE) is consistently associated with better child cognitive and academic skills, especially when children participate at age 3-4 years. Yet, low-income children are less likely to participate in center-based ECE, in part because their mothers are more likely to work a nonstandard schedule (i.e., evening, night, rotating, or variable shifts) and center-based ECE programs typically operate on a daytime schedule. Most research on mothers’ work schedules and children’s ECE participation, however, has been conducted prior to large increases in public investments in ECE, which greatly increased access to center-based ECE for low-income families. Funding for child-care subsidies for low-income families increased by 500% in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and funding for Head Start and public pre-kindergarten for 3- to 4-year-old children increased by 200-350%. This study examines how the associations between mothers’ work schedules and children’s ECE participation have changed over time, comparing 3–5-year-olds who are eligible for Head Start and public pre-kindergarten to 0-2-year-olds.

Methods: We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1996 to 2020 panels, a nationally-representative U.S. study. Due to the 2014 redesign of the SIPP, data on child-care arrangements before and after the 2014 panel are not comparable. Therefore, we focus on the following years: 1997, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2009-2011 (N=39,434). We estimate logistic regression models predicting children’s center-based ECE participation from mothers’ work schedules (i.e., daytime, evening, night, rotating/split, or irregular shift, or not working), work hours, and family sociodemographic characteristics (e.g. mothers’ age, race, education). We add interactions between mothers’ work schedules and year indicators (i.e., 1997-1999, 2002-2005, and 2009-2011) to examine how these associations have changed over time. In subsequent analyses, we will add data on state-level ECE spending to test whether increases in ECE spending explain changes in these associations.

Results: Between 1997 to 2011, center-based ECE participation increased from 12% to 15% among 0-2 year-olds and from 29% to 31% among 3-5 year-olds. Results from regression models show that among 0-2-year-olds, the negative association between mothers’ nonstandard schedules and center-based ECE has grown stronger. For example, relative to children whose mother worked a daytime shift, children whose mother worked a night shift were 9 percentage points less likely to attend center-based ECE in 1997-1999 and 12 percentage points less likely in 2009-2011. Among 3–5-year-olds, the association has weakened but only for mothers’ night shifts: relative to children whose mother worked a daytime shift, children whose mother worked a night shift were 12 percentage points less likely to attend center-based ECE in 1997-1999 but only 4 percentage points less likely in 2009-2011. Results are similar when we limit the sample to low-income families.

Conclusions and Implications: During a period of rapid increase in ECE funding, mothers’ nonstandard schedules appear to have become less of a barrier to 3-5-year-old children’s participation in center-based ECE. For infants and toddlers, however, gaps in center-based ECE due to mothers’ work schedules have grown larger over time.