Work Hours, Scheduling, and Worker Wellbeing
Co-funded with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
The growth in unstable, low-wage service jobs with few benefits requires many workers to accept insufficient or volatile hours from week to week or to work schedules that disrupt family routines. Sociologist Ryan Finnigan will examine nationally-representative panel data on volatile work hours, insufficient hours, nonstandard schedules, earnings volatility, job security and mobility, poverty, material hardship, debt, marital dissolution, health, and child wellbeing. The project will address these questions: To what extent are volatile hours, involuntary part-time work, and nonstandard schedules associated with reductions in worker and family wellbeing? To what extent are cumulative experiences of burdensome work hours and schedules associated with reductions in worker and family wellbeing, independent of or in combination with current hours and schedules? To what extent are negative effects of work hours/schedules on wellbeing stronger for less-advantaged workers than more-advantaged workers?