Casey H. Boyd-Swan
Current Projects
Nonparental Child Care during Nonstandard Hours: Does Participation Influence Child Well-being?
Over the last three decades there has been rise in the number of workers employed during nonstandard (evening and overnight) hours; accompanying this trend has been a renewed interest in documenting the well-being of workers and their families. However, no work has considered how participation in nonparental child care during nonstandard hours influences child well-being. That is the aim of the current paper. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the 1999 and 2002 National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF), this paper investigates the relationship between participation in nonstandard hours of nonparental child care (‘nonstandard child care’) and child well-being. I begin this investigation by classifying children as participants or nonparticipants in nonstandard child care, and specify a child production function to estimate the association between nonstandard child care participation and child well-being. I find that children who participate in nonstandard child care are more likely to require special education services in school, lack proficient engagement with school, display reduced peer-to-peer and child-to-parent social development skills, and report worse contemporaneous physical health conditions when compared to all nonparticipant children. Estimates indicate that the influence of nonstandard child care participation on child well-being differs dramatically across preschool and school-aged children.
Who Uses Nonparental Child Care during Nonstandard Hours? A Descriptive Analysis Using the National Survey of America's Families
Recent studies pay considerable attention to exploring the expanding population of workers employed during nonstandard (evening and overnight) hours. However, few consider how parents who work nonstandard hours care for their children when parental care is unavailable.
This paper provides the first detailed examination of children and parents who use nonstandard hours of nonparental child care ‘nonstandard child care’). Using cross-sectional data from the National Survey of America’s Families, I create a unique mechanism to classify children as participants or nonparticipants in nonstandard child care, then perform descriptive and multivariate analyses to test demographic, economic, and employment differences between participants and nonparticipants. I find that older children in households with higher-skilled,
higher-income, black, single, male parents are the most likely to participate in nonstandard child care when compared to an unrestricted sample of children. Occupation data suggest that highskilled parents using nonstandard child care occurs as part of the “nature of their job.”
Static or Dynamic? Identifying Longitudinal Patterns of 'Nonstandard Child Care' Using the ECLS-B
As the population of workers employed during nonstandard (evening and overnight) hours has increased in recent years, paternal employment research has pivoted to explore the duration of time that workers remain in their nonstandard hour positions. Few consider how parents who work nonstandard hours care for their children over time when parental care is unavailable or how participation in nonstandard hours of nonparental child care (‘nonstandard child care’) shifts as children age. Using longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort, this paper examines how children participate in nonstandard child care over time by (1) identifying common patterns and durations of participation and (2) isolating child and parental characteristics associated with protracted spells of participation or nonparticipation using time duration analysis. I find that the least common age at which children enter into nonstandard child care is at 3 years of age; the most common age at which children enter into nonstandard care is at 9 months of age or upon kindergarten enrollment. Most participants are in care for one consecutive spell; almost a third of participants cycle in and out of participation. Time-of-duration analyses indicate that children who reside with older, married, and very low- or very high-skilled parents are the least likely to participate over time.