The role of parental work schedule in CPS involvement
Introduction
Approximately 18% of the labor force, or 22 million workers, engaged in shift work in the United States in 2004 (the most recent national data point) (McMenamin, 2007). The nonstandard work schedule (or shift work), defined as work outside the normative hours of Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., is prevalent in many industrialized countries (Presser, Gornick, & Parashar, 2008). A large body of research has indicated that working non-day and weekend shifts can have largely negative effects on an individual's physical, emotional, and even social health (Costa, 1996, Jamal, 2004, Presser, 2003). Research has also found that low-income parents disproportionately fill the demand for non-day and weekend work hours (Presser, 2003). As such, the adverse consequences of these schedules have generated an extensive literature examining the potential links between parental work schedules and child well-being, including the association between parent shift work and cognitive development (Han, 2005), academic achievement (Han & Fox, 2011), socioemotional health (Han, 2008, Han and Miller, 2009, Joshi and Bogen, 2007, Strazdins et al., 2006, Strazdins et al., 2004), and weight gain (Miller and Han, 2008, Morrissey et al., 2011). To date, however, no studies have examined the role of a nonstandard work schedule in child maltreatment. In this paper, we thus ask whether it is the maternal work schedule per se that is associated with Child Protection Services (CPS) involvement in a family and/or child maltreatment incidents, or whether it has something to do with the economic disadvantages and hardships these mothers experience that tends to alert CPS and lead to involvement.
Presser's (2003) research on work–family issues has consistently revealed that individuals who are African American, less educated, and/or low skilled are more likely than others to work nonstandard shifts. Moreover, single mothers and parents in families with children under age 6 are also more likely to work shift schedules (Presser, 2003). Further research indicates that limited educational backgrounds and skill deficits are strongly linked to poverty, which is also associated with a greater risk of child maltreatment (Slack et al., 2004, Slack et al., 2011). Qualitative studies have vividly portrayed the challenges facing parents working nonstandard schedules who must also care for school-age and/or young children. Parents have reported that affordable, quality childcare is often unavailable, particularly during nonstandard hours (Heymann, 2000). Parents who cannot find adequate childcare may be forced to rely on other children in the house to provide caregiving or even to leave children unattended for certain time periods, which can result in CPS involvement.
This paper therefore fills the gap in knowledge about how maternal work schedules are linked to child maltreatment. We approach this issue with the assumption that such a link might be driven by not just the micro-environment, but also by macro-environmental factors. Specifically, for low-income families, for those headed by single parents, and/or for those in which the parents have low levels of education, working nonstandard hours tends to be dictated by the larger environment (the labor market)—available jobs may demand evening and weekend schedules, forcing parents to work these hours. In the hope of reshaping the current policy response that largely attributes child outcomes to individual and parental characteristics (Heymann, 2000), this paper approaches the link between parental work schedules and child maltreatment with the resource constraints of the larger environment in mind (e.g., involuntary work schedules).
Section snippets
Parental shift work and child maltreatment
The concern about the possible influence of parental shift work on child well-being stems from Bronfenbrenner's (2005) ecological theory and Belsky's (1993) subsequent emphasis on the complexity of etiological factors involved in the genesis of child neglect and abuse. According to Belsky, children's well-being is fostered by the immediate as well as the larger surrounding environments; therefore, child maltreatment involves parents, the child, the family, the community, and the cultural
Data
We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW), a longitudinal study that provides comprehensive information on the characteristics of parents and the well-being of their children, with particular focus on unmarried mothers with young children. The data were collected in 20 U.S. cities with populations of more than 200,000 via stratified random sampling (see Reichman, Teitler, Garfinkel, & McLanahan, 2001 for a detailed research design). Between 1998 and 2000, initial
Descriptive picture
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics on all analyzed variables for the total sample as well as by maternal work schedule. The share of mothers with young children in the FFCW sample who had ever worked nonstandard hours between Birth and Year 3 was a high 65%, compared to 28% of mothers who had worked only standard hours and another 7% of mothers who had never worked between the child's birth and Year 3. The share of mothers working nonstandard hours during the first three years of a child's
Discussion
With the prevalence of parents working nonstandard hours, particularly those with young children, the potential adverse consequences of such schedules on individual, family, and children's well-being merit consideration. Anecdotal stories of the challenges parents face in arranging proper care for their children during work hours imply that childcare struggles can result in CPS involvement. We therefore asked if maternal work schedules were associated with CPS involvement and/or child
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