Nonstandard Work Schedules and Father Involvement Among Resident and Nonresident Fathers

Abstract

Objective The authors examined associations between resident and nonresident fathers' nonstandard work schedules, work hours, and their level of involvement with their young children in the United States. Background Nonstandard work schedules may negatively impact father involvement either directly by reducing fathers' availability or indirectly by taking a toll on their well‐being. Prior research on nonstandard schedules and father involvement has focused on two‐parent households, yet nonstandard schedules may pose similar or greater challenges to nonresident fathers. Method Using data on 1,598 resident and 759 nonresident fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we estimated regression models to test associations between fathers' nonstandard work schedules, work hours, and fathers' involvement—accessibility, engagement, and responsibility—controlling for confounding factors and using residualized change models. For nonresident fathers only, we estimated associations between nonstandard schedules, work hours, and child support. Results Among nonresident fathers, working evenings was associated with lower engagement relative to working standard hours only and other nonstandard schedules, and in some models, working a variable schedule was associated with greater responsibility relative to other nonstandard schedules. Among resident fathers, working any nonstandard schedule versus standard hours only was associated with greater responsibility, and total work hours were negatively associated with each measure of involvement. Conclusion The findings suggest that fathers' work schedules may be an important factor in understanding resident and nonresident fathers' involvement with their young children.

Determinants of Paternal Engagement: Investigating Low-Income Fathers’ Caregiving, Play, and Verbal Engagement With Infants

“…Consistent with extant research (Pilarz et al, 2019), our results indicated that fathers who work more hours per week report less frequent verbal engagement with their infants. However, fathers’ work hours were surprisingly not related to their caregiving or physical play despite past research demonstrating that fathers’ total work hours were negatively correlated across various forms of father involvement (e.g., accessibility, engagement, and responsibility; Pilarz et al, 2019). Perhaps when low-income fathers have limited time and energy as a result of long work hours, they prioritize some forms of engagement (e.g., physical play and caregiving) over others (e.g., verbal engagement).…”

“…Generally, our results suggest that infant age is a salient child characteristic (although not with respect to fathers' caregiving), but it seems paternal engagement is not driven to a large extent by other measured child characteristics within a low-income sample. Consistent with extant research (Pilarz et al, 2019), our results indicated that fathers who work more hours per week report less frequent verbal engagement with their infants. However, fathers' work hours were surprisingly not related to their caregiving or physical play despite past research demonstrating that fathers' total work hours were negatively correlated across various forms of father involvement (e.g., accessibility, engagement, and responsibility; Pilarz et al, 2019).…”

Working 9‐to‐5? A review of research on nonstandard work schedules

“…Nonstandard schedules likewise influence child–parent relationships. Working nonstandard hours generally decreases time spent with children (Hook, 2012; Pilarz, Cuesta, & Drazen, 2020), but such schedules may also allow some men to increase the amount of time they spend with their children (Mills & Täht, 2010). In part, this may be due to “tag‐team parenting” (Täht & Mills, 2012) in which dual‐career parents balance nonstandard hours such that one parent is typically present with the child (ren) (Barnett & Gareis, 2007; Folk & Yi, 1994; Glass, 1998; Nock & Kingston, 1984; Presser, 1988).…”

Proximal Social Determinants of Adolescents’ Health: The Importance of Everyday Life Circumstances

“…To address potential biases caused by missing data, we used multiple imputation with chained equations for all the variables in the study (Royston & White, 2011). Considering that some cities do not have weights and that no corresponding weights to address attrition were available in Year 15, we followed other published studies (Parkes et al, 2019; Pilarz et al, 2019; Schroeder et al, 2020) and controlled for variables that were used to create survey weights rather than apply the survey weights to the analyses.…”