After 25 years of research on the work-family nexus, much remains unknown. For example, knowledge of prioritizing work-family obligations largely comes from studies of white-collar executives (most of whom are men) employed in Fortune-500 firms; less is known about work-family choices in samples that have more women, working in jobs with modest wages and flat career trajectories. In addition, prior research has largely focused on how long people work, not WHEN they work. The contemporary economy is increasingly moving to a 24-hour/7-day a week schedule, and current knowledge about the career and familial effects of working nonstandard schedules is limited. This project will draw a sample of retail food workers living in the greater Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio areas. Women constitute one-half of those working in this sector, and non-standard schedules (i.e., working evenings, nights, weekends, and rotating schedules) are typical. Further, whereas jobs in the retail food sector have modest wages and limited promotion chances, the major employers in the area (e.g., Kroger) offer family-responsive policies that allow workers to balance their work and family responsibilities. One goal of this study is to examine which policies workers use to reduce work-family conflict, given their current family needs. Data will be gathered in two waves via a telephone survey. In the presence of extensive demographic and economic controls, the project will examine the effect of working non-standard schedules on marital quality and instability, sleep loss and fatigue, spillover between work and family obligations, and career attainment. The findings from this project will contribute to sociological knowledge, in that there is little research on how schedule type affects these outcomes. Further, the panel design for this study allows for a determination of how work changes affect family life, how family changes affect work decisions, and which causal effect is stronger. Results from this study will also benefit society at large, in that researchers will have detailed measurements of the physical, social, economic, and familial effects of working non-standard hours. In addition, results from the study will inform corporate policies regarding work-life balance, in that the investigators will identify which workers in the sample use such policies, and how it affects subsequent family functioning and later career attainment.
