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Article

Abstract

Parental school involvement is consistently associated with better child development outcomes. Although parental work schedules are expected to shape school involvement, little empirical research examines this relationship. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort 2010-11, (N=6,047), we estimated associations between parents’ work schedules and multiple indicators of school involvement. Compared to daytime schedules, flexible variable schedules were associated with more parental school involvement. Working a regular nonstandard schedule or employer-set variable schedule was not associated with school involvement, except that working nights was associated with attending fewer school events. We found limited evidence of heterogeneity by family structure or parent gender. These findings suggest parental work schedule flexibility may benefit child outcomes through increased parental involvement.

Disciplines

Social Work

Comments

Accepted for publication in Families In Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services. "Under Sage's Green Open Access policy, the Accepted Version of the article may be posted in the author's institutional repository and reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses" (https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/posting-to-an-institutional-repository-green-open-access).

Kess Ballentine https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1456-7174

Alejandra Ros Pilarz https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-6106

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