Father Involvement and Young Children’s Well-Being: The Role of Nonstandard Parental Employment Schedules

Matthew Weinshenker, Fordham University
Emily Rosenbaum, Fordham University
Christopher Morett, Fordham University

This study addresses how father engagement with children, responsibility for care, and confidence in parenting condition the negative impact on young children when one or both parents in dual-earner families work for pay during nonstandard hours. Past research has demonstrated that behavioral development is harmed more when mothers are employed on a non-day schedule than when fathers are. To try to understand this finding, we investigate two questions. First, how is father involvement with children affected when the mother works a nonstandard schedule, and how is it affected when the father does? Second, are variations in father involvement and confidence more predictive of child well-being when a parent works nonstandard hours? To answer these questions, we make use of a nationally representative sample of young children with co-resident parents from the first three waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort.