Understanding the Relationship Between Instability in Child Care and Instability in Employment for Families With Subsidized Care

Scott, Ellen K.; Abelson, Miriam J.

doi:10.1177/0192513x13516763

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Research that has attempted to tease apart the influence of job instability on childcare instability and vice versa suggests the relationship is quite nuanced. Childcare disruptions can be detrimental to job stability, but more frequently job changes precipitate childcare changes (Miller 2006;Scott and Abelson 2016). Also, parents with precarious work schedules are more likely to have difficulty arranging childcare and to miss work because of lack of care, potentially threatening their employment (Luhr, Schneider, and Harknett 2022, this issue).…”

Section: W H Y Childca Re Continuit Y M At Tersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Childcare Instability Among Families with Low Incomes: (Un)desired and (Un)planned Reasons for Changing Childcare Arrangements

Pilarz

Sandstrom

Henly

2022

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a leJa ndr a ros pil a r z , he ather sa ndstrom , a nd Juli a r. henly Childcare instability can negatively affect family well-being. Yet not all childcare changes are bad for families. This qualitative study (N = 85) examines work, family, provider, and subsidy-related factors contributing to childcare changes among families with low incomes. We focus on the desirability-the extent to which parents wanted to leave their provider-and the planned nature of childcare changes-the extent to which parents anticipated the change and had time to plan. We find that although nearly all desired changes were planned, undesired changes were both planned and unplanned. Planning was important but not enough for finding care that aligned with family needs, and undesired changes, especially sudden changes, were often driven by the loss of a childcare subsidy, sometimes accompanied by a job loss. We discuss how these findings can help researchers and policymakers understand the implications of complex childcare trajectories for family well-being and early care and education policy.

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Section: W H Y Childca Re Continuit Y M At Tersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Childcare Instability Among Families with Low Incomes: (Un)desired and (Un)planned Reasons for Changing Childcare Arrangements

Pilarz

Sandstrom

Henly

2022

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“…Prior research has found that child care‐related work disruptions are less likely to occur when the parent is receiving child care subsidy (Forry & Hofferth, ), which could also potentially reduce parenting stress. In this, considering that poverty has long been seen as a risk factor for poor parenting behaviour (Conger & Elder, ; Conger, Ge, Elder, Lorenz, & Simons, ), the employment stability associated with subsidized child care (Scott & Abelson, ) and increase in hours worked (Press, Fagan, & Laughlin, ) could prevent child maltreatment from occurring. Further, child care subsidy has been found to be related to reduced placement disruptions for children in foster care (Meloy & Phillips, 2012).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child care subsidy and child maltreatment

Yang

Maguire‐Jack

Showalter

et al. 2019

Child & Family Social Work

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This study examined the relationship between receipt of child care subsidies and child maltreatment investigations in a sample of low-income mothers in Illinois. We expected that receiving child care subsidies would have a protective effect on child maltreatment risk and therefore decrease the likelihood of child protective services investigations. Using structural equation modelling, we tested the direct and indirect paths of the receipt of child care subsidies to physical abuse or neglect. We found only direct effects of receiving child care subsidies on both physical abuse and neglect investigations. The findings suggest an important protective role of child care subsidies in the lives of low-income families.

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“…The provision of basic needs and services can be destabilized by both income instability and the loss of public benefits. Growing evidence from both qualitative studies and surveys documents the high frequency of change in lowincome family life and the linkage between change in employment and change in child care (Scott, London, and Hurst 2005;Ben-Ishai, Matthews, and Levin-Epstein 2014;Scott and Abelson 2016) and change in employment and change in housing (Desmond and Gershenson 2016).…”

Section: Interactions Between Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Introduction to Household Economic Instability and Social Policy

Hill

Romich

Mattingly

et al. 2017

Social Service Review

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This special issue of Social Service Review presents original research on the determinants and consequences of economic instability, with a focus on the interplay between instability and social policy. To frame that discussion, we define economic instability as repeated changes in employment, income, or financial well-being over time, particularly changes that are not intentional, predictable, or part of upward mobility. We also present a conceptual framework for how instability occurs in multiple domains of family life and how social policy has the potential to both buffer and exacerbate instability in employment and family structure. The articles in the volume engage many of these domains, including employment and program instability, and multiple areas of social policy, including workplace regulations and childcare subsidies. They also point to paths for future research, which we summarize in the final section of this introduction. Across many areas of life, instability marks the day-today reality of low-income Americans. Unpredictable employment and work schedules (Hollister 2011; Hollister and Smith 2014; Lambert, Fugiel, and Henly 2014), fluctuating public benefits (Lambert and Henly 2013; Mills et al. 2014; Ben-Ishai 2015), changes in romantic relationships and household composition (Cherlin 2010), and unwanted housing and neighborhood churning (Desmond, Gershenson, and Kiviat 2015; Desmond and Shollenberger 2015; Desmond 2016) all too commonly mark the lives of poor Americans. Taken together, these sources of economic instability create much greater income variability for low-income families than for their high-income counterparts, and this gap in income variability has grown larger in recent years (Morris et al. 2015). Both the causes of income variability and the fluctuations in resources have been shown to affect material hardship and adult and child outcomes (e.g.

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Understanding the Relationship Between Instability in Child Care and Instability in Employment for Families With Subsidized Care

Cited by 21 publications

References 18 publications

Making Sense of Childcare Instability Among Families with Low Incomes: (Un)desired and (Un)planned Reasons for Changing Childcare Arrangements

Making Sense of Childcare Instability Among Families with Low Incomes: (Un)desired and (Un)planned Reasons for Changing Childcare Arrangements

Child care subsidy and child maltreatment

An Introduction to Household Economic Instability and Social Policy

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