Watson, L., Frohlich, L., and Johnston, E. (2014, April).

Collateral Damage: Scheduling

Challenges for Workers in Low-Wage Jobs and Their Consequences. Washington, D.C.:
National Women’s Law Center. Retrieved from
http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/collateral_damage_scheduling_fact_sheet.pdf
● 76 percent of workers in the ten largest low-wage jobs are women
● Marked by work scheduling policies and practices that pose particular challenges for
workers with significant responsibilities outside of their job, including caregiving, pursuing
education and workforce training, or holding down a second job
● Five of the most common scheduling challenges faced by workers in low-wage jobs
1) Lack of Control over Work Schedules
2) Unpredictable Work Schedules
○ “just-in-time scheduling,” week in advance
3) Unstable Work Schedules
○ Vary from week to week
4) Involuntary Part-Time Work
○ Underemployed
5) Nonstandard Work Schedules
○ evenings, nights, weekends, or working on rotating shifts, irregular
schedules, or on call
○ “unsocial work” — conflict with family time
● Impact on caregiving responsibilities
○ Low wage workers more likely to be single parents, have children w/ special
needs, care for relatives, higher rates of illness themselves
○ Cobble together childcare at the last minute
■ Can’t go to centers that require pre-payment on monthly or weekly basis
■ The relative or non relative caregiver may also be balancing a schedule in
flux
○ Negative effects on marriages
■ Higher rates of divorce and lower relationship satisfaction
■ Tag teaming results in even less time as a couple
○ Negative effects on children
■ Children of non standard schedule workers score lower on cognitive tests,
more behavioral problems, poorer mental health, more likely to drop out
of high school
○ Makes it nearly impossible to pursue higher education
○ Unexpected loss of employer or government benefits tied to work hours

Chaudry, A., Pedroza, J., and Sandstrom, H. (2012, February). How Employment Constraints
Affect Low-Income Working Parents’ Child Care Decisions. Perspectives on Low-Income
Working Families, Brief 23. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute. Retrieved from
http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412513-How-Employment-Constraints-Affect-Low-
Income-Working-Parents-Child-Care-Decisions.pdf
● Parent Employment Characteristics
 ○ Just less than full time, 33 hrs a week, at or near poverty level
○ Paraprofessional and admin, services, factory/retail/sales
○ Most had no paid time off, vacation time, or sick leave
■ Least flexibility to balance family needs and work demands
○ Very few got healthcare, 401(k), etc
● Employment Challenges and Constraints
○ Scarcity of jobs in post Recession economy, pushed into less desirable positions
■ Strong need to keep current job, such that they molded other parts of their
lives like child care to fit work demands
○ Parental employment and income unstable, difficult to find care arrangements
and plan ahead
○ Transportation constraint
■ Getting back and forth between job and child care is difficult if parents
lack access to personal car, rely on public transport, or had long
commutes.
● Job and Employer Inflexibility
○ Stringent shift policies and consequences for tardiness, missing a shift, leaving in
the middle
■ Supervisors sometimes begrudge employees for using formal policies of
work flexibility, creates anxiety
○ Inflexibility and unpredictability sometimes a product of business models
structured around client demand
○ Rarely feel secure in their jobs or feel that it would be okay for them to respond to
their child’s care needs or a family emergency without jeopardizing their
employment
● Work and Child Care Fit
○ “You have to choose your child care to fit your work, ’cause if not . . . [then] I
don’t think you would have a job”
○ “It would be nice if [the centers] were open a little later, because it’s really hard to
find a day job within that time frame.”
○ Many parents used relatives and family child care providers to accommodate less
flexible work environments
○ When the balance between work and care broke down, many said they had no
choice but to quit or be fired
● Conclusions and Implications
○ Stronger continuum of child care opportunities from birth to age 5 that meets
families’ needs and preferences, and that also is consistent with the employment
constraints faced by low-wage working parents.
■ These efforts need to be targeted where the supply and integration of
services is most limited
○ Extended hours, incentivized through public funding or integrating subsidies with
HeadStart, state preK, etc to create full day programs
 ○ Minimum number of paid sick days that employed parents can use to care for
their dependents’ illness or emergency care needs.
○ Employee-financed paid family leave programs, e.g. CA/NJ/WA

Schochet, L. (2019, March 28). The Child Care Crisis is Keeping Women Out of the
Workforce. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Retrieved from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/early-childhood/reports/2019/03/28/467488/childcare-
crisis-keeping-women-workforce/
● Nationally, the cost of lost earnings, productivity, and revenue due to the child care crisis
totals an estimated $57 billion each year.
● Mothers make the tradeoff between work and childcare
○ Cause of plateau in American women’s plateauing LFPR
○ Wash DC: 2 yrs of universal pre - k increased LFPR of young mothers by 22%
● Families growing in reliance on mothers’ income
● Over a 15-year period, women who took just one year off work had earnings that were
40 percent lower than women who did not take time off
● Families with infants and toddlers also reported that “lack of available slots” was the
primary reason for difficulty
● Families with preschoolers were significantly more likely than families with infants and
toddlers to report “location” as their top reason for difficulty
● Mothers’ employment is more likely than fathers' to hinge on child care availability
● Mothers say they would increase their earnings and seek new job opportunities if they
had better access to child care
● Capping child care costs at 10% of family income? Sliding scale
● Recommendations
○ Child Care for Working Families Act: limiting families’ child care payments to 7
percent of their incomes on a sliding scale
■ would enable an estimated 1.6 million parents to enter the workforce and
create additional 700,000 jobs
○ Build the supply of licensed child care in these underserved child care deserts
○ The Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act would offer up to 12
weeks of paid leave each year to qualifying workers who need to take time off for
the birth or adoption of a new child, serious illness of an immediate family
member, or a medical condition of their own.
○ Schedules That Work Act would establish national fair scheduling standards,
allow workers to make schedule requests, and require that employees receive
their work schedules two weeks in advance,
Madowitz, M., Rowell, A., and Hamm, K. (2016, June 21). Calculating the Hidden Cost of
Interrupting a Career for Child Care. Washington, D.C.: The Center for American Progress.
Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/earlychildhood/
reports/2016/06/21/139731/calculating-the-hidden-cost-of-interrupting-a-career-forchild-
care/
● Total lost income calculated in three parts:
1) last annual salary * number of years out of labor force
2) difference in estimated salary growth over time, after deducting employee
401(k) contributions
3) lost retirement assets from 401(k) and Social Security
● Even those in the middle class, a lack of affordable child care can be a much larger
financial trap than commonly understood
● Gains from working significantly outweigh the cost of even very expensive child care
○ But because the costs of child care are concentrated in a few years, while the
benefits in earnings are spread out over many years
● Solutions
○ High-Quality Child Care Tax Credit: $14,000 per child for families earning up to
400 percent of the poverty level; refundable
● Investment that pays off for two generations
● Childcare by parents is not actually free
○ Noah zatz ucla
○ Opportunity cost

Friedman, D. (2001). Employer Supports for Parents with Young Children. The Future of
Children, 11(1), pp. 63-77. Retrieved from
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1602810?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
● Employee benefits and work/family supports seldom reach all layers of the workforce
○ low-income workers who need assistance the most are the least likely to receive
or take advantage of it
■ Mostly large firms leading the way and differs wildly by industry
● Innovations in on-site child care, paid leave, flex time
● Retention of employees an important motivation for family friendly policies
● Female dominated industries like retail are lower wage and provide almost no employer
supports
● Parents often use other time off options like vacation, personal days, sick leave as
addendum to 12 wks of leave under FMLA, but leaves them with no net when
emergency needs arise later
● On site options
○ A back up if primary arrangement falls through or option for when parent returns
to workforce after time off
○ Concierge services eliminate chores that would have to be done outside
workplace that take up time
 ○ Lactation centers
● Financial assistance
○ Good health insurance, employer contributions to cover child care costs like with
health insurance, or subsidies
● Information and counseling, work/life training
● Impact
○ Improve job satisfaction, retention; decrease absenteeism
● Business resistant to mandates
○ Should be framed as anticipating inevitability
● Asking more and more from employees, all these flex options are not getting at root of
problem

Dobbins, D., Lange, K., Gardey, C., Bump, J., and Stewart, J. (2018). It’s About Time! Parents
Who Work Nonstandard Hours Face Child Care Challenges. Arlington, VA: Child Care
Aware of America. Retrieved from https://info.childcareaware.org/blog/its-about-time-whatyou-
can-do-about-nonstandard-hours-child-care-challenge (note that you will need to
download the report from this site)
● Predom low income workers who need NSH care, affects especially single parents,
minority parents, student parents
● NSH care often unregulated
● Policy changes for ​secure scheduling
○ Upfront signaling of hours per month worked, more advance notice of work
schedule, compensation for changes, 10+ rest hrs b/w shifts
● CCR&Rs as connector resources and sources of data, services
● Federal funding should incentivize NSH care, make standards of safety and quality
adaptable
○ Child care providers who offer child care during NSH may face burnout, a lack of
regulatory guidance, and higher facility insurance and maintenance costs,