Against the backdrop of dramatic changes in work and family life, this article draws on survey data from 2,971 mothers working in the service sector to examine how unpredictable schedules are associated with three dimensions of parenting: difficulty arranging childcare, work-life conflict, and parenting stress. Results demonstrate that on-call shifts, shift timing changes, work hour volatility, and short advance notice of work schedules are positively associated with difficulty arranging childcare and work-life conflict. Mothers working these schedules are more likely to miss work. We consider how family structure and race moderate the relationship between schedule instability and these dimensions of...
Policies aimed at improving scheduling conditions hold promise to benefit older service workers' well-being. As the population ages, improving work schedules in the years approaching retirement may be important to longer working lives.
The authors develop a model of cumulative disadvantage relating three axes of disadvantage for hourly workers in the US retail and food service sectors: schedule instability, turnover, and earnings. In this model, exposure to unstable work schedules disrupts workers’ family and economic lives, straining the employment relation and increasing the likelihood of turnover, which can then lead to earnings losses. Drawing on new panel data from 1,827 hourly workers in retail and food service collected as part of the Shift Project, the authors demonstrate that exposure to schedule instability is a strong, robust predictor of turnover for workers with relatively...
Alongside wages, work schedules are a fundamental component of job quality, yet work schedules are largely unregulated in the US labor market. In 2017, Seattle became the second large US city to pass fair workweek legislation. Seattle’s Secure Scheduling ordinance aims to increase schedule predictability by requiring employers to provide 2 wk notice of work schedules, among other provisions. Our paper shows that Seattle’s law not only increased schedule predictability but also improved subjective well-being, sleep quality, and economic security. The law had no effect on reports of psychological distress. Using the natural experiment afforded by Seattle’s fair workweek law,...
Alongside wages, work schedules are a fundamental component of job quality, yet work schedules are largely unregulated in the US labor market. In 2017, Seattle became the second large US city to pass fair workweek legislation. Seattle’s Secure Scheduling ordinance aims to increase schedule predictability by requiring employers to provide 2 wk notice of work schedules, among other provisions. Our paper shows that Seattle’s law not only increased schedule predictability but also improved subjective well-being, sleep quality, and economic security. The law had no effect on reports of psychological distress. Using the natural experiment afforded by Seattle’s fair workweek law,...
The COVID-19 pandemic has focused public and policy attention on the acute lack of paid sick leave for service-sector workers in the United States. The lack of paid sick leave is potentially a threat not only to workers’ well-being but also to public health. However, the literature on the effects of paid sick leave in the US is surprisingly limited, in large part because instances of paid sick leave expansion are relatively uncommon. We exploit the fact that large firms in the US were not required to expand paid sick leave during the COVID-19 pandemic but that one casual dining...
Workplaces shape risk for exposure to COVID-19 through on-site safety practices, including the provision and required use of personal protective equipment, as well as protective policies such as paid sick leave and the flexibility to work from home.
Hourly workers in the US—especially those in the retail and food service sectors—have work schedules that are often unstable and unpredictable, with variable work hours, short advance notice of weekly schedules, and frequent last-minute changes to shift timing.
Work schedules in the service sector are often unstable and unpredictable. Data from The Shift Project (n=16,000) reveal strong associations between precarious work schedules and sleep quality.Unstable work schedules are more predictive of sleep quality than working the night shift or parenting a young child. Chronic uncertainty about the timing of work shifts impedes healthy sleep patterns.
Working parents must arrange some type of care for their young children when they are away at work. For parents with unstable and unpredictable work schedules, the logistics of arranging care can be complex. In this paper, we use survey data from the Shift Project, collected in 2017 and 2018 from a sample of 3,653 parents who balance work in the retail and food service sector with parenting young children from infants to nine years of age. Our results demonstrate that unstable and unpredictable work schedules have consequences for children’s care arrangements. We find that parents’ exposure to on-call work...
