Couples’ Work Schedules and Child-Care Use in the Netherlands

Abstract

Various aspects of parental work schedules affect the opportunities and constraints that parents encounter when arranging care for their children. This study examined the extent to which the combination of couples' work schedules was associated with their use of different types of child care, focusing on parental, formal, and informal child care. We considered multiple dimensions of couples' work schedules, namely, the timing of work, schedule flexibility, and home-based telework. Data from a recent Dutch survey were used, including information about 1599 dual-earner couples with children aged 0-6 years. The results indicated that paid work during nonstandard hours increased the amount of parental child care that was provided by one parent while the other parent was working, whereas work during evenings, nights, and weekends decreased the likelihood of using both formal and informal child care. Results further revealed gender differences for nonstandard hours and schedule flexibility. We found stronger effects of mothers' work schedules, indicating that a gender-neutral approach to parental work is not justified. These results indicate that the timing of parental work is important to consider when examining not only parental child care but also formal and informal childcare use. We provide recommendations for future research, specifically regarding the possible consequences for parental well-being.

Early Child-care Arrangements and Both Parents’ Subjective Well-being

“…Formal Child-care and Parental SWB Formal child-care has risen high on the agenda of policymakers and researchers, particularly with a focus on subsidized formal child-care. The main goal of policyinitiated child-care is to increase mothers' labor market participation (Herbst & Tekin, 2014;Schmitz, 2019), but also to improve children's and parents' well-being (Broekhuizen et al, 2016;Connolly & Haeck, 2015;Verhoef et al, 2016).…”

“…It indicates the involvement in the working sphere. Prior research has shown that workhours relate to parental SWB and work schedules are a determinant of child-care arrangements (Verhoef et al, 2016). As the characteristics of both partners affect the decision for child-care arrangement information on the respondents' partner is taken into account: The partner's CSP-CH, time devoted to housework and the workload.…”