Child Care Systems Don’t Align with What Parents Working Nontraditional Hours Recommend

Child care challenges are getting more attention as the short-term crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a severe, ongoing problem for many working families. However, despite that roughly one-third of all children younger than 6 have parents who work nontraditional-hour schedules, there is little information about the kinds of child care parents want during nontraditional hours. This knowledge gap has hampered policymakers’ ability to ensure their strategies meet parents’ wants and needs. This blogpost summarizes findings from interviews with 41 nontraditional-hour working parents who have young children and explores what kinds of child care these parents recommend and why.