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Research has not yet examined how paid labor performed at nontraditional hours may factor into women’s perceptions of the fairness of the division of household labor. Here we specifically examine how being employed during nonstandard hours alters the relationship between the division of household labor and wives’ perceptions of the fairness of this division of labor.

We analyze data from the National Survey of Families and Households using multinomial logistic regression.

We find that over-work in household labor has a weaker effect on perceptions of unfairness for wives who work nonstandard hours than for wives who work standard hours. This interaction effect, however, is partially mediated by husbands’ time in feminine-type chores.

The cross-sectional design does not allow us to draw causal conclusions. Future research would benefit by considering how movement in and out and nonstandard work affects perceptions of fairness of household labor.

Our findings suggest that one way that the gender revolution has stalled is through women’s participation in the service economy since this participation is positively associated with their husbands’ hours in routine chores, which women particularly value. Thus, women may continue to perceive fairness in the home, despite objective inequality, because their husbands are spending more time in feminine-type chores, as necessitated by women’s participation in work at nonstandard times.

Nonstandard work schedules are increasingly common in today’s economy, and work during these nonstandard hours has a negative impact on health. Scholars investigating work schedules have yet to explore how marital status, which is linked with better health, may protect the health of US workers with nonstandard schedules. This study uses binomial logistic regression models to analyze pooled data from the National Study of the Changing Workforce (N = 6,376). Interaction terms are utilized to test if marital status variations occur in the relationship between work schedule and health for men and women.

The results demonstrate that while working a nonstandard schedule puts men and women at a lower odds of reporting good health compared to those who work a standard schedule, there is no difference in this relationship across marital status for men. However, nonstandard schedules are worse for the health of cohabiting and divorced, separated, or widowed women than for married women. The results indicate a significant interaction between work schedule and marital status exists for female workers and should be considered when examining the health of the population with nonstandard work schedules.

Many workers today are employed under a variety of nonstandard work arrangements, such as contract work and agency temporary work. While prior research has shown that the use of nonstandard workers can be detrimental to standard workers’ attitudes and behaviors, producing conflict between nonstandard and standard employees, that research has not shown how or why. We propose a model in which threat to status of, and accommodation by, standard workers cause negative reactions to nonstandard workers, contingent upon the competence of nonstandard workers. The model helps explain how subtle differences among seemingly similar nonstandard work arrangements can produce dramatically different challenges to work group effectiveness. Implications for the effective blending of work groups are discussed.

We critique existing literature on the rise of precarious work because of its inattention to the historical organization of work by race and gender. We use intersectional theory to develop a racial–gender lens on precarious work, asking how do race, gender, and educational attainment shape exposure to insecure work. Historically, Blacks pursued education to mitigate against labor market discrimination with uneven success. Education has traditionally protected against exposure to precarious employment, but this association has weakened in recent years and the persistence of differential returns to human capital suggests that the relationship between education and insecure work may be racially contingent. We assess risk of exposure to precarious nonstandard work for racial and gender groups from 1979 to 2015 using data drawn from the CPS-MORG. We find that education is not equally protective across demographic groups and over time, contributing to inequality in access to stable, standard employment.

Employees working nonstandard schedules outside the daytime hours of the Monday-Friday work week are increasing. Using Social Exchange Theory (SET), the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize relationships between scheduling preferences, attitudes, and retention indicators.

Survey data were collected from 343 US Postal Service mail processors (day, evening, or night shift; all shifts working weekends) from three cities. Multivariate analysis of covariance and multiple linear regression were used to test hypotheses related to participants’ perceptions of scheduling preferences and attitudes.

The authors found that preferences and attitudes toward shift worked had stronger relationships with each other and employee retention indicators for the night and evening shifts than the day shift, and these same relationships were stronger for the day shift when focussing on days of the week worked.

Although limited by generalizability concerns, this study provides a distinctive application of SET to work schedules and offers a unique perspective on how working nonstandard days and nonstandard times, individually, impact the employment relationship.

Better work schedule management, with increased flexibility and control, may be one way of reducing negative employee reactions to nonstandard schedules.

This study goes beyond the typical examinations of standard vs nonstandard shifts, to study multiple nonstandard shifts and examines the relationships of these schedules on employee retention variables, focussing on both shift and weekend work.

Major demographic trends are affecting the work schedules of U.S. employees with likely consequences for health and quality-of-life outcomes. These trends include long work hours, at least for some groups of employees, and an increasing proportion of employees in the U.S. and other countries who are working nonstandard work schedules. This chapter contains a review of the empirical literature linking the number of hours worked and the distribution of those hours at the individual and couple level to a variety of outcomes, cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In addition, because the majority of U.S. workers live in dyads (Jacobs & Gerson (2004). The time divide: Work, family and gender inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), major attention is given to the impact of work hours on the employee's spouse as well as on the employee. It is also noted that the relationship between work hours and outcomes might be different among employed single women with children. Data are presented from two new studies conducted by my research team to fill some of the critical knowledge gaps. Finally, I suggest some directions for future research.

Time pressures in paid work and household labor have intensified in recent decades because of the increase in dual-earner families and long and nonstandard employment hours. This analysis uses U.S. time-diary data from 1998 to 2000 to investigate the association of employment and household multitasking. Results indicate that mothers do more multitasking than fathers and the gender gap in household labor is largest for the most intense type of multitasking: combining housework and child care. In addition, mothers employed for long hours spend more time multitasking than mothers employed 35–40h per week. It appears that motivations for multitasking are heterogeneous: some multitasking is done out of convenience, whereas other multitaskings are a strategy used to manage too much work in too little time.

The current longitudinal study investigated the within- and between-person variance in work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict among working mothers over time. It also examined the effects of a nonstandard work schedule and relationship quality on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict using bioecological theory. Results of multilevel modeling analyses showed that there was significant within- and between-person variance in work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. The linear and quadratic terms were significantly related to family-to-work conflict, whereas the quadratic term was significantly associated with work-to-family conflict. There was also a positive relationship between a nonstandard work schedule and work-to-family conflict, whereas relationship quality was negatively associated with family-to-work conflict. Future studies should consider diversity among working mothers to adequately predict work–family conflict. The current study provides important implications for employers to consider, concerning within-and between-person differences among working mothers, which could in turn allow for accommodations and help to decrease work–family conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a multilevel framework for examining the links between part time work, productivity and institutional context. The authors emphasize the importance of integrating different theoretical perspectives to enrich the understanding of nonstandard work arrangements such as part time and organizational effectiveness such as productivity.

The authors used data from 2,839 businesses in 21 OECD countries. At the firm level, primary data were collected from the 2008 to 2010 survey of the Cranet research network. At the national level, the authors used information from OECD and Botero et al. (2004). The authors analysed the data using hierarchical linear modelling.

Firm use of part time work relates negatively to employment legislation but positively to gender empowerment. The relationship between part time work and productivity at firm level is moderated by employment legislation.

This study provides a basis for research in nonstandard work, firm outcomes and institutional policies to further advance.

Results indicate how managers should consider the relevant institutional context when deciding whether to promote the use of part time work. Results also show that policy-makers should be careful since employment policies may have adverse effects on use of part time in specific contexts.

The authors make theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of nonstandard arrangements by introducing a framework that better captures the complex interrelations between use of part time work, productivity and institutional context. Theoretically, the authors combine the resource based view with institutional theory into a multilevel framework that challenges the conventional model of the flexible firm.

The author tests the hypothesis that the effects of evening and night employment on working parents’ work-to-family conflict and life satisfaction depend on the reasons that individuals name for their schedules. Regression models are fitted to data from an original sample of 589 employed US parents. Partnered (married and cohabiting) fathers who work partially in the evening or night experience less work-to-family conflict if they report personal motives, but schedule motivation does not affect work-to-family conflict among partnered or single mothers. Partnered mothers who work primarily in the evening or at night report higher life satisfaction if they do so for personal reasons, but this effect is not found for single mothers or partnered fathers. Specifically seeing their schedules as facilitating family care matters for partnered mothers, but not fathers. Although nonstandard employment schedules have been linked to poor well-being among working parents, this is the first quantitative study to assess the role of worker motivation to the author’s knowledge. The results are suggestive because they are based on a nonprobability sample of modest size. However, they demonstrate the need for future studies of employment scheduling to collect information on worker motivations. Most night workers in the United States do not select their shifts for personal reasons, putting them at risk for work-to-family conflict and reduced life satisfaction. They deserve extra support in exchange for laboring while others sleep or spend time with family.