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Couples’ Work Schedules and Child-Care Use in the Netherlands

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Abstract

Various aspects of parental work schedules affect the opportunities and constraints that parents encounter when arranging care for their children. This study examined the extent to which the combination of couples’ work schedules was associated with their use of different types of child care, focusing on parental, formal, and informal child care. We considered multiple dimensions of couples’ work schedules, namely, the timing of work, schedule flexibility, and home-based telework. Data from a recent Dutch survey were used, including information about 1599 dual-earner couples with children aged 0–6 years. The results indicated that paid work during nonstandard hours increased the amount of parental child care that was provided by one parent while the other parent was working, whereas work during evenings, nights, and weekends decreased the likelihood of using both formal and informal child care. Results further revealed gender differences for nonstandard hours and schedule flexibility. We found stronger effects of mothers’ work schedules, indicating that a gender-neutral approach to parental work is not justified. These results indicate that the timing of parental work is important to consider when examining not only parental child care but also formal and informal child-care use. We provide recommendations for future research, specifically regarding the possible consequences for parental well-being.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Netherlands Institute for Social Research and the Dutch Bureau of Statistics, and in particular Wil Portegijs, Mariëlle Cloïn and Ans Merens, for enabling us to include additional questions in the survey and for providing us with the data.

Funding

This study was funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Research Talent Grant 406-13-051).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Utrecht University, PO Box 80.140, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Melissa Verhoef, Anne Roeters & Tanja van der Lippe

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  1. Melissa Verhoef
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  2. Anne Roeters
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Correspondence to Melissa Verhoef.

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Verhoef, M., Roeters, A. & van der Lippe, T. Couples’ Work Schedules and Child-Care Use in the Netherlands. J Child Fam Stud 25, 1119–1130 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-015-0289-1

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