The Complex Relationship Between Changing Work Schedules, Child Care, and Child Well-Being
Our economy has always had jobs that fit outside the conventional 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, schedule, but with the rise of telework, on-demand scheduling apps, "irregular work," and the Gig Economy, more workers not only find themselves earning their paychecks in the early morning, at night or on weekends; but their hours may change on a frequent basis. Finding safe and high quality child care that accommodates non-standard or changing work schedules is a familiar challenge for many workers, but a relatively new area of public policy research. On this week's episode of On the Evidence, we talk about a report that looks at the complicated relationships between changing work schedules, the availability of child care for those schedules, and child well-being. My guests are the co-authors of that report, Angela Rachidi and Rus Sykes, who conducted research on behalf of Mathematica and the American Public Human Services Association, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. An abridged and edited Q&A blog based on the conversation is available here: https://mathematica-mpr.com/commentary/the-complex-relationship-between-changing-work-schedules-child-care-and-child-well-being