Work Schedule Quality and the Production of Parental Stress and Parenting Time

A large body of literature has documented the effects of work scheduling practices, such as nonstandard shifts, long work hours, and unpredictable schedules, on worker and family well-being. However, work schedule quality is a multidimensional concept, and few studies operationalize and comprehensively examine how distinct dimensions of work schedule quality affect these outcomes, including in interaction, and particularly related to parenting time and parental stress. Using survey data from working parents at 140 large US food and retail firms, we build on prior literature that illuminates the multidimensionality of work schedule quality. We use fine-grained measures to compare the effects of five dimensions of work schedules—duration, timing, variability, predictability, and control—on parental stress and parenting time. We find that frequent exposure to work schedule instability has a profound impact on parents, triggering heightened parental stress and limiting time with children, but the results vary across dimensions. Duration, predictability, and control are significantly associated with both outcomes, whereas timing only affects stress, and variability only affects parenting time. We also find some limited evidence of the moderating effect of schedule control. These heterogeneous impacts across dimensions emphasize the importance of a multidimensional conceptualization of work schedules, especially for working parents.