Employment Instability, Working-Time Employment Policies, and Economic, Health, and Work-Family Wellbeing

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Considerable literature over the last thirty years has documented declining job quality and growing employment precarity especially for jobs in the bottom third of the economy (Kalleberg, 2011). Employment instability is a problem of job loss and churning (between job instability) but also underemployment and precarious work hours while holding a job (within job instability). Working time policies can address this temporal dimension of within job instability, for example by giving workers more control over when, where, and how much they work or by regulating employer scheduling practices that determine work hours and access to time off.  

This panel includes four papers and two discussants. The first paper examines how employment instability unfolds throughout the life course and its implications for health and economic security in older age. Using a nationally representative longitudinal sample of US workers (NLSY79), the paper examines diverse employment transitions over time—both within and between job instability—linking these transitions to later outcomes. The study shows how a lifetime of precarious work can translate into health and economic vulnerability for a significant subset of the population. 

The remaining three papers take on distinct working time policies (Fair Workweek Laws, Remote Work, and Family and Medical Leave) that have the potential to improve worker outcomes and work-family wellbeing, perhaps reducing cumulative health and economic risks to individual workers and families later in life.  

Fair Workweek (FWW) laws regulate employer scheduling practices with the goal of providing employees greater predictability, stability, and control over work schedules. Paper 2 examines a sample of retail and service workers in three geographic regions of the US with jobs either covered or not by FWW laws. Prior research from this project (Lambert et al., 2025) demonstrated that workers covered by FWW laws reported more predictable schedules; but not all FWW provisions were realized. The current study examines how differential “doses” of FWW provisions matter for employee wellbeing, especially work-family conflict.  

Paper 3 considers the recent growth of remote and hybrid work and interrogates the ways in which these jobs deliver flexibility to working mothers using qualitative interview methods.  This study compares the experiences of mothers employed remotely to those working in person to examine the benefits and challenges of both types of work arrangements. The paper takes a gendered lens and considers an expansive set of benefits and challenges spanning work, home, and personal life. 

Finally, Paper 4 considers the potential for family and medical leave policies to provide low-income immigrant workers time off in the face of caregiving hardships.  Specifically, this qualitative study examines the challenges of accessing paid family and medical leave among Hispanic service sector workers in Massachusetts. The study identifies participation barriers that include circumstances particular to immigrant policy concerns as well as interpersonal barriers on the job, for example with human resources and supervising personnel.   

Two policy research experts will discuss the four papers, including a consideration of actionable policy solutions to overcome barriers to stable work and wellbeing uncovered in these papers.

Policy Area

• Poverty and Income Policy

Chair

• Julia Henly, The University of Chicago

Discussants

• Elisabeth S Jacobs, Urban Institute

• Rita Hamad, Harvard University

Organizer

• Julia Henly, The University of Chicago

Individual Presentations

• Delivery of Fair Workweek Protections and Work-Family Conflict - Presenting Author: Yuxi He, The University of Chicago

• Tracking 30 Years of Working Conditions and Their Cumulative Toll at Age 60 - Presenting Author: Wen-Jui Han, New York University

• Connections Between Work Modality and Wellbeing Among Low-Income Working Mothers - Presenting Author: Kess Ballentine, Wayne State University

• Increasing Access to Paid Family and Medical Leave Among Hispanic Service Sector Workers - Presenting Author: Pamela Kumari Joshi, Boston University