Job quality indicators and child-care access among mothers of young children in New England 
Examining the links between variable work schedules, work-life balance supports, and child-care access in New England
Inaccessible child care is a significant barrier to employment. This brief explores how specific job characteristics can influence a parent’s ability to access and maintain reliable child care.
Historically, caregiving demands disproportionately affect women, leading to persistent gaps in labor force participation. Mothers frequently face a wage penalty and often shoulder the primary child-care burden. Using survey data from nearly 2,100 New England mothers, this research explores how measures of work-life balance may predict successful child-care usage, or conversely, access challenges.
The study reveals that unpredictable schedules and a lack of workplace flexibility may exacerbate child-care constraints, disproportionately affecting nonwhite and lower-income workers. Conversely, employer-provided work-life balance supports have the potential to act as a defense against mothers having to forgo needed care.
Key Findings
- The Rise of Remote Work and Flexibility: Among surveyed mothers in the labor force, access to remote work increased by 19.0 percent, and flexible schedules increased by 14.0 percent from the pre-COVID-19 period to the 2022 survey, with these trends expected to persist.
- Demographic Disparities in Work-Life Balance: White mothers and mothers holding a bachelor’s or higher reported having a significantly higher number of work-life balance supports compared to nonwhite mothers and those without a four-year degree.
- A Slight Decline in Unsupportive Job Conditions: Job situations that are less supportive of work-life balance, such as working multiple jobs or working nontraditional hours, decreased slightly over time, according to mothers’ recollections, experiences, and expectations.
- Paid Sick Leave May Enable Greater Child-Care Access: Having access to work-life balance supports like paid sick leave increased the odds of a mother successfully using child care by a multiplier of 3.3. Conversely, exposure to unsupportive job characteristics (like employer-set variable work schedules or nontraditional hours) decreased the odds of using care by as much as 10.5 percent.
- Flexible Schedules Can Help Prevent Forgone Care: Having both a flexible schedule and paid sick leave was associated with decreased odds of a working mother having to forgo needed child care by as much as 68.9 percent. In contrast, unpredictable, changing schedules increased the likelihood of foregoing needed care by 71.1 percent.