The Effects of Parental Nonstandard Work Schedules on Adolescents’ Academic Achievement in Dual-Earner Households in South Korea

Abstract

A growing body of research has explored the degree to which nonstandard work schedules affect workers and their families. However, relatively few studies to date have examined the relationship between parental nonstandard work schedules and adolescents’ academic achievement, and even less attention has been paid to Asian populations. This study aimed to examine the effects of parental nonstandard work schedules on adolescents’ academic achievement in South Korea. We analyzed 1100 dual-earner households with middle-school students from the 2011 and 2012 Korean Child and Youth Panel Survey (KCYPS). Results from a cross-sectional ordinary least squares regression and regression with a lagged dependent variable showed that fathers’ nonstandard work schedules were significantly associated with poorer academic achievement in math, while mothers’ nonstandard work schedules were not. In the fixed effects model, however, the negative relationship between fathers’ nonstandard work schedules and adolescents’ academic achievement became only marginally significant. These results provide suggestive evidence that the negative effect of parental nonstandard work schedules on South Korean adolescents’ academic achievement may be due, at least in part, to selection bias. Unobserved differences between standard and nonstandard shift fathers and their adolescents might have biased the estimates from the cross-sectional regression and regression with lagged dependent variable. This implies that future studies on the impact of nonstandard work schedules need to employ robust methods to minimize selection bias.