Parenthood, child care, and nonstandard work schedules in Europe

Parents’ employment behavior has been the focus of a great deal of research. As exemplified by the discussion of ‘overworked families’ (Jacobs and Gerson 2001), the number of hours that parents work has been of particular interest. By contrast, only recently have scholars begun to study parents’ scheduling of paid work and the consequences of nonstandard work schedules for families and children (Presser 2003; Han 2008; Täht 2011; Täht and Mills 2012; van Klaveren et al.2013; Li et al.2014).

Nonstandard work schedules – that is, work outside the typical Monday to Friday, nine-to-five schedule – can have negative consequences for child well-being. A large body of evidence showed that work during evenings, nights and on weekends is stressful and can affect workers’ involvement in family life and responsiveness to children. For instance, parents working nonstandard schedules reported more depressive symptoms, less effective parenting and worse family functioning (Strazdins et al.2004). As a consequence, nonstandard work schedules are related to lower levels of children's health and well-being. In comparison to children in families where neither parent works nonstandard hours, young children in families where one or both parents work nonstandard hours have more social and emotional difficulties (Strazdins et al.2004), higher levels of externalizing and internalizing problems (Han 2008; Daniel et al.2009), and lower levels of cognitive development (Han 2005; Han and Fox 2011). These studies also showed that the association between parents’ work schedules and child well-being persists after adjustment for socio-economic class (Strazdins et al.2004), education (Han 2005; Han and Fox 2011), occupation (Han 2005, 2008; Han and Fox 2011) and patterns of child care (Strazdins et al.2004; Han 2005).

In all, the negative association between parents’ works schedules and child well-being suggests that parents should avoid nonstandard schedules in order to prevent their children from experiencing such adverse consequences. However, parents with insufficient access to formal child care may work in the evening, at night, or on weekends as a means of meeting child-care needs, enabling ‘split-shift’ (Presser 2003) or ‘tag-team’ parenting (Hattery 2001). These terms refer to situations in which parents work alternate shifts to ensure that at least one parent is available to provide child care.

In this study, we examine the prevalence of nonstandard schedules among parents and childless couples in 22 European countries. Specifically, we ask whether the provision of formal child care influences the extent to which parents of preschoolers are drawn into nonstandard schedules. Although the impact of child care on maternal labor force participation and on the number of hours worked has been studied intensively (Pettit and Hook 2005, 2009; Uunk et al.2005), previous research has paid little attention to the effect of formal child care on the scheduling of these working hours.

Most studies to date on parents’ work schedules have focused on the USA (Presser 2003; Han 2004; Wight et al.2008), while European research on nonstandard work schedules is still rare and inconclusive. However, the existing research hints at cross-national differences in the association between parenthood and nonstandard work schedules. Studying the association between parenthood and nonstandard work schedules in seven European countries, Presser et al. (2008) found significant effects only in Italy, France and the UK. In a Dutch study, Täht (2011) found that parents were more likely than nonparents to work in the evening or at night, but less likely to work weekends.

The current study sheds new light on nonstandard work schedules of parents by focusing on how access to formal child care moderates the relation between parenthood and work schedules. Given the detrimental effects of nonstandard work schedules on children's emotional, social and behavioral well-being, understanding why parents work nonstandard schedules is crucial for the design of family and educational policies aimed at fostering child development.

The working patterns of families have changed profoundly over the last few decades. With rising female employment rates there has been an overwhelming shift from single- to dual-earner households. Moreover, families today not only work more hours than a few decades ago, but also more often work in the evening, at night or on weekends. Nonstandard work schedules have become a typical characteristic of the ‘24-7 service economy'. In the European Union, almost 20% of all employees work at night at least once per month. Nearly half of all employees work at least one Saturday per month, and 24% work at least one Sunday per month (Boisard et al.2003).

Most employees who work nonstandard hours do so because of their job requirements. Nevertheless, as Presser's (2003) study indicates, one out of four employees who works nonstandard hours in the USA does so for personal-familial reasons. This applies particularly to parents of preschoolers. As qualitative studies on the Netherlands (Täht and Mills 2012) and Canada (Pagnan et al.2011) demonstrate, some parents use nonstandard hours as a strategy to combine paid work and child care. Moreover, recent research has suggested that the availability of formal child care may influence parental work schedules. A study by Felfe (2012) indicates that evening schedules are attractive for mothers of young children in western Germany, where public daycare is limited. Results showed that mothers returned from parental leave sooner if they worked evening schedules and that they were even willing to sacrifice part of their wages to work evenings rather than days. By contrast, evening schedules appeared to be unattractive in eastern Germany, where public child care is widely available.¹ Furthermore, Carriero et al. (2009) conclude from a comparison of Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands that couples tend to synchronize their work schedules if their children are in child care, whereas they tend to split-shift if nonparental child care is unavailable.

Given the arguments and findings reviewed above, we expect that parents will be more likely than childless couples to work nonstandard schedules if they live in countries that offer limited formal child care. But parents in countries where public child care is widely available are expected to avoid nonstandard work schedules.

Furthermore, we assume that couples’ decisions about which parent will work nonstandard schedules are gendered decisions. Although the male breadwinner model has eroded over recent years in most western societies, on average, women still adapt their labor market activities to the needs of their children more than men following childbirth (Sanchez and Thomson 1997; Gjerdingen and Center 2005; Craig and Mullan 2010; Kühhirt 2012). Mothers not only interrupt their careers to care for their infants and work reduced hours when their children are small; they also work nonstandard schedules more often than fathers to care for children as they grow up (Presser 2003). We therefore expect that the availability of child care will have a greater impact on mothers’ working schedules than on fathers’.

The data for our analyses are taken from the European Social Survey (ESS). The ESS is conducted biannually and provides high quality data for cross-national comparisons. The second and fifth ESS round (2004 and 2010) contain questions on respondents’ work schedules and the work schedules of respondents’ partners. Hence, these two rounds are well suited to addressing the questions raised in this study. As only few persons work nonstandard schedules in some countries, we pool the data from the two waves to increase our sample size. Our sample includes 22 countries (Table 1). The sample is restricted to childless respondents and parents of preschoolers (age 0–5) between the ages 18 and 45. As split-shift parenting can only occur when both parents work a substantial number of hours, another requirement is that respondents as well as their partners work at least 20 hours per week. The sample includes 2529 men and 2848 women.

Dependent variables: Nonstandard work schedules are measured by two items asking how often respondents work (a) in the evening or at night and (b) on weekends. Respondents provide this information for themselves and for their partners. This study operationalizes the work schedules of individual respondents as well as the schedule arrangements within couples. The frequency of evening/night work is measured in seven categories: never, less than once a month, once a month, several times a month, every week, several times a week and every day. As Presser (2003) argues, indicators for nonstandard work schedules should sharply differentiate people who organize their lives around a nonstandard schedule from people who never or only occasionally work this schedule (see also Presser et al.2008; Täht 2011). Therefore, in our analysis we use dichotomous indicators for nonstandard schedules rather than the ordinal scale. Respondents are coded as working night or evening shifts if they report working during these hours several times a week or every day. The frequency of weekend work is measured in five categories: never, less than once a month, once a month, several times a month and every week. Respondents are coded as weekend workers if they report working on weekends several times a month or every week. As can be seen in Table 1, the percentage of workers who work several evenings or nights a week ranges from 7% among women in Slovenia to 33% among men in Great Britain. The percentage of workers working Saturdays or Sundays several times a month ranges from 9% among women in Israel to 49% among men in Poland. At the couple level, we distinguish four types of employment arrangements: households where only the woman works a nonstandard schedule, households where only the man works a nonstandard schedule, households where both partners work a nonstandard schedule and households where neither partner works a nonstandard schedule. Descriptive statistics on couples’ schedule arrangements are displayed in the Appendix.

Independent micro-level variables: The main explanatory variable at the micro level is a binary variable indicating whether or not respondents live with one or more children aged 0–5 years. Furthermore, the models include extensive control variables. Previous research has shown that the incidence of nonstandard work schedules differs strongly across social class and industrial sectors, as well as by establishment size (Presser 1995, 2003; Lesnard 2008). We therefore control for social class, distinguishing between higher service class, lower service class, routine non-manual workers, the self-employed, skilled manual workers, unskilled manual workers and farmers, according to the Erikson–Goldthorpe class scheme (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992). The industrial sector is derived from the NACE (Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques danss la Communauté européenne) classification and distinguishes among the primary sector, manufacturing, producer services, distributive services, personal services and social services. Establishment size is measured by five categories (less than 10, 10–24, 25–99, 100–499 and 500 or more employees). We also control for survey year, age, the number of weekly work hours and education. The measure for education distinguishes among lower education (primary and lower secondary, ISCED 0–2), medium education (upper secondary and post-secondary, ISCED 3–4) and higher education (tertiary, ISCED 5).

It is conceivable that parents’ decision to work nonstandard schedules results from their belief that parental child care is superior to center-based care (Täht and Mills 2012). The ESS does not directly ask parents about their child-care preferences, but it does include respondents’ level of agreement with the statement ‘Women should be prepared to cut down paid work for the sake of the family.’ The item is measured on a five-point scale and was recoded so that it ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree. We use this item as a proxy for parents’ child-care preferences, with higher values indicating a preference for parental care.

Macro-level variables: At the macro level, we include a measure of the availability of formal child care. Following current practice (e.g. Pettit and Hook 2005, 2009; Uunk et al. 2005; Budig et al.2012), the provision of public child care was measured in terms of the percentage of children aged 0–2 years enrolled in formal child care in a given country in 2008.² This information was taken from the OECD Family Database (OECD 2012, see Table 1). We used the percentage of children aged 0–2 to construct the child-care indicator because child care for these children is explicitly intended to help families balance care and employment, whereas programs for children aged 3–5 often aim at providing education (see also Misra et al.2011).³ Sensitivity analyses that used the availability of child care for children aged 3–5 years produced results very similar to those reported here (the results can be obtained from the authors).

In addition we control for the size of the service sector in 2007 (taken from the UNECE Statistical Database) and the welfare state regime. We distinguish between a social democratic regime (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands), a conservative regime (Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg), a liberal regime (Ireland, Great Britain), a Mediterranean regime (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Israel) and a post-socialist regime (Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria).

We used two sets of models for our analysis. With the first set of models, we examined for men and women separately whether parents are more likely to work nonstandard schedules than nonparents and how this association is affected by access to formal daycare. To gain further insights into the relation between formal child care and split-shift parenting, we then took a couple perspective in the second set of models. Here, we analyzed whether parenthood affects the likelihood that respondents belong to a couple in which only the woman, only the man, or both partners work a nonstandard schedule rather than a couple in which neither partner works a nonstandard schedule. This perspective allows us to directly identify split-shift arrangements where one partner works a nonstandard schedule while the other does not. However, a shortcoming of this second step is that control variables such as employment sector, establishment size and child-care attitudes are only available for the respondent but not for his or her partner.

Given binary dependent variables, logistic regression models are appropriate for the first step of the analysis. For the second step, we used multinomial logistic regression to capture the four different work arrangements that are possible at the household level. The data structure with respondents nested within countries calls for multilevel analysis (Rabe-Hesketh and Skrondal 2012a, b). Multilevel analysis decomposes the variance of the dependent variable between the country level and the individual level and allows for the inclusion of explanatory variables at the different levels. Furthermore, multilevel models can be specified to allow the effect of children on nonstandard schedules to vary across countries. We can then include cross-level interactions between formal child-care provision and parenthood status to determine whether the effect of children on working nonstandard schedules varies systematically across countries.

Sufficient sample sizes at both the country and individual level are necessary to obtain accurate parameter estimates. As a rule of thumb, Kreft (1996) suggests a minimum of 30 groups with 30 observations per group, whereas Heck and Thomas (2000) suggest a minimum of 20 groups with 30 observations each. Maas and Hox (2005) show the number of observations per group can be even lower: In their simulation study, already a sample of 30 groups with 5 observations led to accurate estimates of the regression coefficients and their standard errors. Hence, according to these studies, our sample size is sufficient.

As the negative correlations indicate, parents are more likely than nonparents to work nonstandard schedules when access to formal child care is scarce. But in countries with better access to formal child care, parents become increasingly less likely to work nonstandard schedules. This association scratches statistical significance for night work among women and weekend work among men.

The first graph in the upper panel shows a significant negative association between the provision of formal child care and the relative prevalence of split-shift arrangements, where the mother works evenings or nights and the father works standard hours. This supports our assumption that a lack of formal child care draws mothers into such split-shift arrangements in order to provide parental child care. By contrast, the association between formal child care and split-shift arrangements where the father works in the evening or at night is weak. The fourth graph in the upper panel shows that parents in countries where formal child care is widely available are significantly more likely to both work standard hours than parents in countries where formal child care is scarce. This finding provides further support for our hypothesis that inadequate provision of formal child care draws parents into split-shift arrangements. The likelihood that both parents work evenings or nights appears to be unrelated to formal child care.

The graphs in the lower panel of Figure 2 depict the relative prevalence of weekend work among couples with children. Here, the results are less consistent with our hypotheses. As the third and fourth graph in the lower panel indicate, the relative prevalence of arrangements where both parents work weekends decreases significantly when child care is widely available. However, there is no evidence that formal child care is associated with split-shift arrangements where one parent works weekends while the other does not.

Turning to the multivariate analyses, Table 2 presents the results from the multilevel models estimating the association between formal child care and nonstandard schedules. The results support our assumption that a lack of child-care opportunities drives parents into nonstandard schedules. According to the main effects of parenthood – which refer to the situation in a country where little child care is available – mothers work nights more often than childless women, and fathers work weekends more often than childless men. However, as the interaction effects between parenthood and child-care coverage indicate, this only holds for countries where formal child care is scarce. In countries that offer extensive formal child care, the effect of children is reversed. When the provision of formal child care is high, mothers are less likely than childless women to work evenings or nights and fathers are less likely than childless men to work weekends.

As interaction effects are difficult to interpret, we calculated the predicted marginal probabilities for the incidence of nonstandard schedules among parents and nonparents in countries with low and high child-care enrolment rates. These probabilities illustrate that the impact of formal child care is substantial. When a country shows a very low rate of enrolment in formal child care (e.g. 2% in the Czech Republic), mothers are seven percentage points more likely than childless women to work evenings or nights. By contrast, when the majority of children are in formal child care (e.g. 66% in Denmark), mothers are four percentage points less likely than childless women to work in the evening or at night. Likewise, fathers are nine percentage points more likely than childless men to work weekends when formal child care is limited, but six percentage points less likely to work weekends when formal child care is widely available.

Concerning gender differences, the results for evening and night work are in line with previous research (Presser 1995; Hamermesh 1996) as they indicate that mothers are more prone to adapt their work schedules to child-care needs than fathers. The opposite appears to be the case for weekend work. Here, fathers appear more likely to adapt their schedules to child-care needs than mothers.

In the next step, we turn to the analysis of the effect of child-care coverage on couples’ work schedule arrangements. Table 3 presents relative risk ratios from multinomial logistic regression contrasting the likelihood that only the man, only the woman, or both partners in a couple work nonstandard schedules compared to the likelihood that neither partner works a nonstandard schedule (reference group). These results generally align with the bivariate results shown in Figure 2. In countries with little formal child care, the relative risk of a split-shift arrangement where the woman works in the evening or at night and the man works a standard schedule is greater for parents than for nonparents. By contrast, in countries with sufficient formal daycare, this split-shift arrangement is less likely for parents than for nonparents compared to an arrangement where both partners work a standard schedule. This finding provides further evidence that mothers tend to work nights for child-care reasons when formal child care is unavailable. However, formal child care does not affect the relative risk that both parents or only the father works evenings or nights.

Regarding weekend work, we find no evidence that formal child care is associated with split-shift arrangements where one parent works weekends and the other does not. But the likelihood that both parents work weekends is lower in countries where many young children attend daycare than in countries where few children attend daycare. This provides some evidence for the hypothesis that both parents can work during standard weekdays when extensive formal daycare is available. The fact that both parents are particularly likely to work weekends when public child care is limited may reflect a split-shift arrangement with one partner working on Saturdays and the other on Sundays.

A substantial proportion of the workforce works in the evening, at night or on weekends. Because nonstandard schedules are associated with a number of negative outcomes for the individual workers and their families (Li et al.2014), parents may seek to avoid such schedules. However, when parents do not have access to formal daycare, working alternate schedules with one partner on a nonstandard schedule may be the only option allowing both parents to be gainfully employed. In this study, we asked whether insufficient provision of formal child care draws parents into nonstandard work schedules.

We found that access to formal child care is strongly related to the likelihood that mothers work in the evening or at night. The more formal child care was available in a country, the less likely mothers were to work evenings or nights compared to childless women. Taking a household perspective and studying the work schedules of both partners jointly provided further support for these findings. Split-shift arrangements where the mother worked nonstandard hours and the father worked standard hours were particularly likely in countries where access to formal child care was low. High child-care enrolment rates, by contrast, were associated with work arrangements where both parents worked during the day.

The findings for weekend work were more ambiguous. We found that fathers were more likely than childless men to work weekend schedules if they lived in countries with a low supply of formal daycare, but they were less likely than childless men to work weekends if they lived in countries with a high supply of formal daycare. The couple-level analysis, however, did not support the assumption that parents use split-shifting on weekends for child-care reasons. Nevertheless, arrangements where both parents work weekends were less likely in countries where extensive formal child care was available. The overall findings are in line with previous research indicating that parents work at nights more often than on weekends because of child-care reasons (Presser 1995; Täht 2011).

Our findings shed new light on the association between child-care choices and schedules worked. Apparently, the provision of child care does not only directly benefit children's well-being (as shown, for example, by NICHD 2002; Hansen and Hawkes 2009), but also indirectly: As our study showed, insufficient provision of formal child care induces parents to work nonstandard schedules, which decreases time spent together as a family, reduces parenting quality, and jeopardizes children's cognitive development and mental health.

Concerning gender differences, the findings for evening and night work add to previous research showing that mothers rather than fathers adapt their work schedules to child-care needs (Sanchez and Thomson 1997; Gjerdingen and Center 2005; Craig and Mullan 2010; Kuhhirt 2012). Apparently, mothers not only interrupt their careers and reduce their working hours when they have children, but also often switch to evening and night shifts to better combine child care and paid work. By contrast, fathers do not seem to work evening or night shifts to meet child-care needs. However, we find a surprisingly strong association between formal child-care provision in a country and weekend work among fathers.

Some limitations to our study should be noted. Our analysis utilized cross-sectional data. Consequently, the question of causality remains a legitimate concern. Theoretical reasoning and the empirical findings presented here suggest that the provision of child care within a country affects parents’ choice to work nonstandard schedules. Nevertheless, causality may also run in the reverse direction. As a study by Han (2004) indicates, parents often change their child-care arrangements when mothers stop or begin working nonstandard schedules. Although it seems unlikely that parents’ choice of work schedules influences the national child-care enrolment rates, the cross-sectional nature of our data does not allow us to disentangle these two effects.

Moreover, quantitative surveys usually provide some information about respondents’ work behavior, but little insight into their motives or how couples make their decisions around work and child care. Consequently, our study provides no information about whether parents who work nonstandard schedules do so due to a lack of child-care opportunities or due to job requirements. Qualitative studies on nonstandard schedules – which are still rare – might shed more light on the question of why parents work nonstandard schedules and how they make such decisions.

Irrespective of these shortcomings, the current study provides new and valuable insights into cross-national differences in nonstandard schedules among parents. In particular, it highlights an additional beneficial aspect of formal child care: Formal child care not only facilitates maternal employment and positively affects children's cognitive development, it also enables parents to work standard schedules and thus protects parents and children from the adverse effects of evening and night work.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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.