Mothers' Nonstandard Work Schedules and Children’s Physical and Mental Health: Longitudinal Evidence from the United States

Alicia García Sierra, University of Lausanne
Pablo Gracia , Autonomous University of Barcelona, Centre for Demographic Studies (CED)
Wen-Jui Han, New York University

Nonstandard work schedules –evening, night, rotating, and irregular hours– are prevalent among millions of parents in Europe and North America (Han, Gracia & Li, 2025; Pilarz & Walther, 2025). Research found that maternal nonstandard work schedules relate to children’s poorer academic and socioemotional outcomes (Han & Fox, 2011; Strazdins et al., 2006), and to specific health dimensions such as overweight (Miller & Chang, 2015; Zilanawala et al., 2017). Yet, previous literature in this field has provided little evidence on broader health outcomes, and lacked an empirical design that accounts for causal identification by considering unobserved child and family characteristics and selection into work schedules. To address these gaps, this study applies within-child two-way fixed-effects models with inverse probability weighting, using high-quality longitudinal data from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult (NLSY-CYA) (1986–2020). We track children aged 5–14 to examine how transitions in mothers’ work schedules relate to changes in two key child health outcomes: physical health limitations and behavioural problems. Results show that, when accounting for selection in the transition to nonstandard schedules and non-employment, nonstandard work schedules predict children’s poorer physical and mental health. Our findings extend existing work by improving causal inference and highlighting nonstandard work as a long-term determinant of child health outcomes. Future analyses will address heterogeneity by child gender, race, and family socioeconomic status (SES) and explore mechanisms through mediation analyses to better understand pathways linking maternal work schedules to child health outcomes.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session 32. Flash Session Gender, Work and Labour Market