Shift work, father engagement, and the cognitive development of young children

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates whether the effect of fathers’ positive engagement on young children’s cognitive development is accentuated when one or both dual-earner parents is employed during nonstandard hours. Longitudinal regression models are fitted to three waves of nationally representative data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. Father engagement when children are nine months old has an especially positive effect on children’s cognitive ability at age two when the father works during the day and the mother has a fixed evening or night shift. There are no interactions between shift work and engagement at age two in the whole sample, but subgroup analyses show that engagement has an especially strong effect on children who have a non-parent caregiver if both parents are shift workers. The results highlight the important role fathers play in couples with a shift worker, and provide a rationale for efforts to encourage and support their involvement.