Exploring The Relationship Between Parental Work Schedules and Their Children’s School Attendance

Regular school attendance is associated with student academic achievement, while chronic absenteeism is a growing problem negatively associated with academic and socioemotional outcomes. While research has documented the significant influence of family socioeconomic conditions on student attendance, there is little empirical evidence documenting the potential mechanisms driving this relationship. This study illuminates one such mechanism by examining associations between parental work schedules and children’s school attendance. Using survey data on Detroit parents’ work schedules (N = 1,390) linked to district-provided data on their children’s attendance, we find that, for two-parent households, children whose parents both worked nonstandard schedules were more likely to be chronically absent. Meanwhile, children with one unemployed parent and the other working a nonstandard schedule were less likely to be chronically absent. These findings add to our understanding of the distal impact of job inflexibility in the interconnected lives of working parents and their children.