Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Accompanied by a rapid increase in the number of working mothers and dual-earner families, workplace flexibility—including availability of flexible schedules, working at home, and part-time employment—has become a crucial work-family support for working parents with young children to balance work and family responsibilities. Abundant studies suggest benefits of workplace flexibility on individuals’ wellbeing and their work-family conflict; however, research on how workplace flexibility affects relationships between family members is scarce. Guided by work-family conflict and boundary-spanning resource perspectives (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Voydanoff, 2005), this study hypothesizes that three types of workplace flexibility will be positively associated with couples’ relationship quality and parent-child interactions among working parents with young children.

This study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Birth Cohort, a nationally representative study of children born in the U.S. in 2001. The sample consisted of children’s mothers and resident fathers who were employed at the time of the survey and who participated in the second wave of the study, when children were 2-years-old (N=7,400). Flexible schedules were measured with a dichotomous indicator for availability of flexible work hours or schedules at parents’ current jobs. Working at home was measured with a binary indicator for whether parents have a formal arrangement to work at home. Parents who worked less than 35 hours per week were considered as part-time workers. Measures of couples’ relationship quality consisted of three scales: relationship happiness, a scale of positive partner interactions (e.g., calmly discuss something and laugh together), and negative interactions (e.g., argue about house chores or leisure time). Parent-child interactions were measured via the frequency of three types of activities: literacy (e.g., reading books and telling stories), caregiving (e.g., changing diapers and preparing meals), and physical play interactions (e.g., playing games and taking children out for a walk). This study employed cross-sectional OLS regression models with extensive controls for demographic and employment characteristics. Analyses were conducted separately for mothers and resident fathers.

As hypothesized, results show that, in general, workplace flexibility was associated with better relationship quality among couples and more frequent parent-child interactions. Mothers who worked at home or were employed part-time reported more relationship happiness and more positive interactions with her partner. Fathers with flexible schedules also showed more positive and fewer negative interactions with his partner. However, fathers’ part-time employment was associated with less relationship happiness. For parent-child interactions, among both mothers and fathers, workplace flexibility was generally associated with more frequent literacy and physical play interactions, and in addition, part-time employment was associated with more frequent caregiving activities among fathers.

Findings suggest that workplace flexibility may yield benefits for couples’ relationship quality as well as parent-child interactions and that it may work similarly for mothers and fathers, except for fathers’ part-time employment. With a special interest on socio-economically disadvantaged families, future analyses will explore differences in the impact of workplace flexibility across different levels of family income and social support. Promoting workplace flexibility for parents in the context of work-family policy will be discussed.