Parenthood, child care, and nonstandard work schedules in Europe

ABSTRACT

An increasing proportion of the European labor force works in the evening, at night or on weekends. Because nonstandard work schedules are associated with a number of negative outcomes for families and children, parents may seek to avoid such schedules. However, for parents with insufficient access to formal child care, working nonstandard hours or days may be an adaptive strategy used to manage child-care needs. It enables ‘split-shift’ parenting, where parents work alternate schedules, allowing one of the two to be at home looking after the children. This study examines the prevalence of nonstandard work schedules among parents and nonparents in 22 European countries. Specifically, we ask whether the provision of formal child care influences the extent to which parents of preschool-aged children work nonstandard schedules. Using data from the European Social Survey and multilevel models, we find evidence that the availability of formal child care reduces nonstandard work among parents. This indicates that access to formal child care enables parents to work standard schedules. To the extent that nonstandard work schedules are negatively associated with child well-being, access to formal child care protects children from the adverse effects of their parents’ evening and night work.

KEYWORDS:

• Nonstandard schedules
• parenthood
• child care

Notes on contributors

Mareike Bünning is researcher at WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Her research focuses on family policies and the division of paid and unpaid work in couples. Her recent research has been published in European Sociological Review and Work, Employment and Society.

Matthias Pollmann-Schult is a Heisenberg Fellow at WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He received his Ph.D. degree from Free University in Berlin, Germany. His main research interests are labor market research and sociology of the family. His recent research has been published in European Sociological Review, Journal of Marriage Family and Advances in Life Course Research.

Notes

¹The availability of child care still differs between Eastern and Western Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt 2012), especially for children aged 0–2. In 2012, around 50% of Eastern German children aged 0–2 years, but only 22% of their Western German counterparts attended formal child care. Differences are smaller for children aged 3–5 years (94% vs. 88%).

²We operationalize child-care availability in terms of child-care enrolment rates instead of child-care coverage rates. Arguably, enrolment rates do not fully reflect child-care availability because child-care slots might not be fully utilized. However, we were unable to find comparable cross-national data on child-care coverage for all our countries since international databases (OECD, Eurostat, UNECE) only report child-care enrolment.

³We interpret the availability of child care for 0–2 years old as a proxy for child care in general. Countries with generous child-care services for under 3-year-olds usually also offer extensive child care for older children (Pettit and Hook 2005; Steiber and Haas 2009).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [PO 1569/2-1].