Meeting the Needs of Parents Working Nontraditional and Variable Shift Schedules
Work hours have expanded beyond the 9-to-5, but child care outside of standard weekday daytime hours is almost impossible to find.
by Micere Keels | North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation | August 18, 2026
THE CHALLENGE
Work schedules play a central role in enabling or excluding specific types of child care, and the challenges that parents face finding child care significantly impacts their ability to obtain and maintain employment. Over 10 years ago, North Carolina’s Department of Commerce began examining the increase in nonstandard work schedules and how it could affect employees and overall economic productivity. At that time, almost half of the children living in single-parent homes had a parent who worked nonstandard hours. This could be a single parent who works evenings, nights, and/or weekends. It is rare for these children to be in a licensed child care setting; they are either with the other parent, a babysitter, a relative, or left alone without adult supervision.
Some families choose nonstandard schedules to align with their child care preferences, or to manage the high cost and limited availability of licensed care. In two-parent households, one parent might work nights and/or weekends while the other provides child care. However, surveys indicate that only a small percentage of employees prefer nonstandard shifts; instead, most do so out of necessity. The family strain is considerable; research shows that, especially for women, working nonstandard shifts increases family strain, even when they have control over their schedules.
Only 10% of workers prefer nonstandard schedules, with 55% citing involuntary factors, such as being unable to find another job, as reasons for working nonstandard hours.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
Workplace Flexibility
Too many working parents with young children, especially women, report leaving the workforce because inflexible daytime work hours make it difficult to manage early-morning and after-school care, along with numerous other family management responsibilities. For these working parents, workplace flexibility is one of the most beneficial policies for balancing family and work. The four general types of workplace flexibility include:
- Flex and alternative work schedules that allow employees to vary start and end times on a weekly or daily basis, while still working a set number of hours per week.
- Compressed work week schedules that allow employees to work a 40-hour workweek but in fewer than the typical five workdays, such as four 10-hour workdays.
- Hybrid and remote schedules that allow employees to work remotely for part or all of their work schedule.
- Reduced hours and days while maintaining full-time pay that enables employees to work fewer than a 5-day, 40-hour work week, as long as they meet employer expectations.
These types of workplace flexibility are most available to higher-educated, higher-income employees. There are many challenges associated with offering these types of flexibility to employees in lower-skilled and service jobs. However, research suggests that what lower-wage employees appear to value more than flexibility is stability–consistent, full-time employment with benefits.
Workhours Predicatbility And Stability
For those working in manufacturing and service industries, stable and predictable schedules and a consistent number of work hours are important ways to provide work conditions that enable lower-wage and shift workers to meet family obligations. Many service industries use on-call and just-in-time scheduling, in which companies analyze many factors and frequently adjust the number of workers on a shift (calling in and sending workers home) to maximize profits. A recent survey of 120 of the largest retail and food-service firms in the United States found that 75% of workers reported wanting a more stable and predictable schedule.
Although employers in these industries need flexible workers, this flexibility can be managed in ways that minimize harm to employees and their families. Having a stable and predictable schedule means knowing one’s work schedule at least two weeks in advance to plan for child care, doctor’s appointments, second jobs, and life’s many other obligations.
Family Forward NC®’s (FFNC) 2026 employer benchmarking report found that rapid growth in industries like manufacturing, technology, and health care will only intensify competition for workers. Employers have an opportunity to stand out by going beyond what is required by law or considered a standard benefit, particularly in industries where family-friendly policies are not as common, such as retail, hospitality, and manufacturing.
FFNC’s Guide to Family Forward Workplaces provides a comprehensive list of policies that can improve workplace productivity, recruitment and retention, and support children’s healthy development.
Based on the benchmarking:
- 81% of working adults say that flexible hours and schedules are top priorities for them in the workplace.
- 40% of North Carolina parents say they’ve left a job because it lacked flexibility.
- 64% of FFNC Certified employers in manufacturing offer predictable scheduling.
The retail and food service sector is notable, with the majority of employees reporting having little advance notice of their schedules. Two-thirds report having less than two weeks’ notice, and fifty percent of them report getting less than a week’s notice. Employees also report that their schedules are often changed at the last minute. Fourteen percent experienced at least one canceled shift in their most recent month, and seventy percent experienced at least one change to the timing of one of their shifts in their most recent month.
Even though unpredictable and unstable work schedules in retail and food service are common, they are not universal. Some companies take steps to shield workers from unpredictable scheduling. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth examined a range of companies and found that:
- Parents in jobs that use unpredictable scheduling practices are more likely to experience household economic insecurity, hunger, and other hardships.
- Unpredictable scheduling practices can have harmful intergenerational consequences by destabilizing children’s sleep routines, care arrangements, and psychological and behavioral health.
It is important to remember that the service sector is no longer staffed by teenagers; over 70% of retail and food-service workers are over the age of 25, and 1 in 10 American children has a parent working in this sector. This means we must deeply consider the potential negative effects on children. Unpredictable work schedules can undermine the use of nurturing and secure parenting practices and increase the use of multiple child care arrangements, both of which can impede the formation of secure attachments to caregivers, increase the likelihood of adjustment problems, and lower school readiness.
Value For Employers
Evening and weekend schedules are now a necessary part of doing business, but variable and unpredictable schedules are largely the result of a business model that treats employees primarily as a cost to be minimized rather than a source of competitive productivity to invest in. Many argue that unpredictable scheduling practices shift the risk of doing business away from firms and onto workers and their families.
Research shows that just-in-time scheduling does control immediate staffing costs but can come at a higher cost in the form of greater lateness, absenteeism, and turnover, all of which harm productivity. Some retail and service companies take the investing in employees approach, and there is evidence that it can boost a company’s bottom line. Retailers like Costco, Trader Joe’s, and QuikTrip have shown that investing in employees through higher wages, quality schedules, and increased training is net positive.
- One study examined the retail sector and found adverse effects of inconsistent work schedules on employee lateness and absenteeism, which likely negatively affected store performance.
- Another analysis of the effects of schedule volatility on the likelihood of quitting in the home health field found that 30 days of high schedule volatility over the course of a year increases the average worker’s probability of quitting that year by 20%.
- One report on the effects of stable scheduling across 28 stores found a positive return on investment, as the small increase in staffing costs was more than offset by the 7% increase in median sales.
- An examination of scheduling consistency for cashiers in grocery retailing showed increased productivity. Hour-of-day consistency increased productivity by an average of 0.95% for all cashiers and by 3.39% for inexperienced cashiers. Day-of-week consistency increased productivity by 1.63% for all cashiers and by 7.39% for inexperienced cashiers.
Child Care Piece Of The Puzzle
American consumers have come to expect access to goods and services early in the morning, later in the evening, and on weekends, and companies have responded by expecting employees to be available during these times. However, the child care industry, especially center-based care, still operates on a Monday-to-Friday, daytime-hours schedule.
In general, working nonstandard and variable hours is associated with greater difficulty finding child care. Few child care centers are open outside daytime business hours and rarely offer flexible scheduling options that can accommodate unpredictable and variable work schedules. The lack of access to care increases reliance on informal family, friend, and neighbor care arrangements, on siblings under age 18, and on leaving young children alone without supervision.
Child Care During Non-Standard Hours. Increased workplace predictability and flexibility still leaves the challenge of meeting the child care needs of families, particularly single-parent families, working evening, night, early-morning, and weekend shifts. The mismatch between the need for a flexible workforce and the inflexible availability of child care doesn’t receive enough attention. Jobs with nonstandard schedules are among the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. These include evening, night, and variable-schedule jobs that change from week to week and even day to day. Currently, most of these jobs are lower-wage jobs. Parents in these jobs, especially those in single-parent households, experience tremendous difficulty finding and affording child care.
With little attention from employers and policymakers, parents have been left with the full burden of cobbling together multiple care options. For example, among low-income families with children under age five, about a third of mothers with nonstandard schedules use multiple care arrangements, compared with only 17 to 24% of mothers with standard schedules. It is rare for home-based providers (and essentially no center-based providers) to offer care during these hours. A handful of hospitals and manufacturing plants have invested in on-site evening center-based care to facilitate employee retention and productivity.
Child Care for Parents with Unpredictable Schedules. Although the child care challenges faced by families working during non-standard hours and those working irregularly scheduled shifts are often combined, they are different challenges that require solutions. One study of a national sample of parents with young children working in the service sector found that approximately 30% reported being asked to work on-call, and approximately 70% reported last-minute changes to their work schedules.
For parents with variable schedules, child care that meets their need for flexibility and children’s need for stability can be purchased, but at a high price that is inaccessible for the overwhelming majority of working parents. Families can hire a nanny who provides care whenever needed, or purchase a full-time slot with a provider and use it only when needed. Parents working variable late-evening and overnight hours have few options beyond relative and nanny care.
Increasing The Availability And Accessibility Of Child Care
Even when available, the cost of non-traditional hours child care is prohibitive for most families. Especially considering that the majority of nontraditional hours and variable-shift jobs pay lower wages. Almost half of workers earning below 200% of the federal poverty level report working nonstandard hours. However, these workers face some of the highest child care costs because providers charge higher rates for care outside weekday hours. Home-based providers, the ones most likely to provide nonstandard care, need to cover additional costs associated with meeting regulations and requirements for operating evening or overnight care. This includes home modifications needed to meet sleeping and bathing arrangements.
The Urban Institute identified policy and practice tools that states can use in a multipronged policy approach to designing subsidy policies that address child care for families with nontraditional work schedules:
- Engage parents working nontraditional hours in understanding their child care demand, preferences for types of care, and supply opportunities and constraints.
- Establish financial incentives for providers across settings serving children outside standard daytime, weekday hours, including licensed family homes and license-exempt caregivers.
- Strategically use contracts and capacity grants, based on careful analysis of demand, to support targeted supply-building efforts in areas with sufficient, steady demand for nonstandard-hour care.
- Target training and technical assistance to help providers understand how best to meet the needs of these families.
- Use consumer education strategies to increase awareness of child care services offered outside traditional daytime, weekday hours, and that accommodate variable-hour care needs.
- Retain and expand access to home-based settings, which may be preferred by parents for evening and overnight care.
- Increase the supply of center-based care offered during nonstandard hours at affordable rates.
It has been over 20 years since the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant encouraged states to expand child care availability during nonstandard hours. “Children who need care during nontraditional and variable hours” was listed as one of the child care needs deserving priority consideration by states and territories. Unfortunately, little has changed due to the complexity of the challenge and the lack of a clear understanding of who owns the task of identifying viable solutions.
Is it up to employers to build networks of care providers committed to offering evening, overnight, and weekend care?
Is it up to policymakers to provide incentives and set-asides for providers who offer care during non-standard hours?
Child care during nonstandard hours and for parents working variable shifts is one of the hardest and least-discussed pieces of the child care puzzle, but there is tremendous value for employers, parents, and, most importantly, children in collective public engagement in identifying viable solutions.
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