Trends in the national demand for non-traditional hour care (by state) using ACS data

• In Event: Searching and Finding Child Care to Meet Nontraditional Hour Care Needs and Preferences

Abstract

The U.S. child care system is largely based on the assumption that parents with young children work “regular” work hours – i.e. 8AM to 5PM, Monday through Friday. Most child care providers therefore focusing on serving children between the hours of 7AM on 6PM during the workweek. But what about parents with non-standard work hours? Many employers require workers at night or on the weekend, especially in sectors fields as hospitality or manufacturing. Child care is often far more difficult to find outside of the normal work schedule. The fact that these jobs with non-standard hours are often lower-paying puts additional pressure on families trying to find affordable child care. This is the problem of non-traditional hour child care: the challenge of finding accommodations for children whose parents have non-standard work hours.  

While non-traditional hour care has received increased attention from researchers and policymakers in recent years, we still lack a clear idea of the real demand for child care outside of regular work hours, or the extent to which the need for non-traditional hour care is growing. We conducted an analysis of American Community Survey (ACS) data to address this gap in the research literature. This analysis uses indirect measures of the need for non-traditional hour care in all fifty states, with a focus on Michigan, as well as the change in the need for care between 2014 and 2024. We find that, although the need for non-traditional hour care appears to be declining, a significant percentage of parents with young children work non-standard hours. The data also suggests that low-income families are far more likely to need non-traditional hour care.  

We used ACS questions about parents’ arrival times at work and number of hours worked per week to estimate non-standard working hours. While the most robust strategy given the limitations in the data, it likely underestimates the true need for non-traditional hour care by not addressing care on the weekends. Our approach adapts that employed by Henly and Adams (2018). In addition to examining different time periods and trends over time, this study differs from theirs in two important ways: first, we examined the need for non-traditional care for all families with young children, not just those in poverty; second, we defined standard work hours as 7AM to 6PM, according to regulations in Michigan governing the state’s child care system, rather than Henly and Adams’s 8AM to 6PM definition.

Author

• Colleen E. Graber, Public Policy Associates
  Presenting Author