Round-the-Clock Demand

"Day care is slowly becoming night care in today's economy, as parents work ever longer days, take on second jobs, and accept odd shifts to make ends meet," reports Sabrina Tavernise in a recent New York Times article (January 15, 2012). She continues...

"About 40 percent of the American labor force now works some form of nonstandard hours, including evenings, nights, weekends, and early mornings, according to Harriet B. Presser, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.  That share is expected to grow with the projected expansion of jobs in industries like nursing, retail, and food service, which tend to require after-hours work.

"At the same time, working hours are less predictable than they once were. 'There’s a greater variability and irregularity of schedules,' said Lonnie Golden, a professor of economics and labor studies at Pennsylvania State University.  'In surveys, more and more people are no longer able to specify a beginning or end of the workday.'

"Yet for years it has been a frustrating reality for parents that child care services have failed to keep pace with the changing workday, with many centers still keeping a rigid 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule.   Experiments with nighttime care have come and gone over the years, but lingering ambivalence about the concept led most centers to deem it financially untenable."

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