Journal of Family Issues OnlineFirst, published on November 11, 2009 as doi:10.1177/0192513X09353019
Journal of Family Issues
XX(X) 1 –20
© The Author(s) 2009
Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0192513X09353019 http://jfi.sagepub.com
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Abstract
Most employed parents, many in dual-earner couples, are at work when their children get out of school, generating parental concerns about children’s welfare after school. Parental concerns are hypothesized to be related to respondent and partner work hours, respondent schedule control, and child’s unsupervised time and to give rise to job disruptions. The authors examine these links and the moderating effect of parent gender in a sample of 936 parents (310 men, 626 women) in full-time employed dual-earner couples with a school-aged (K-12) child. Parents’ long work hours, lack of schedule control, and children’s time unsupervised after school predicted high parental concerns, and parental concerns, in turn, predicted job disruptions. With one exception, results did not differ by gender.
Keywords gender, dual earners, parental concerns, after-school time, job disruptions
1 Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
2 Goodman Research Group, Cambridge, MA
3 Catalyst, Inc., New York, NY
Corresponding Author:
Rosalind Chait Barnett, Brandeis University, Women’s Studies Research Center, Mailstop 079,
515 South Street, Waltham, MA 02453-2720
Email: rbarnett@brandeis.edu

2 Journal of Family Issues XX(X)
With the lengthening workday, today’s parents, especially dual-earner couples, face increasing challenges in meeting work and child-rearing demands.
Most public-school pupils are dismissed by 3:00 p.m., yet their parents may not get home until 6:00 p.m. or later. As a U.S. Department of Labor (1999) report noted, “Using the most generous calculations, only about 64% of a full-time worker’s standard work schedule is covered by the hours children are typically in school” (p. 33). The discrepancy between parents’ work schedules and their children’s school schedules creates an “after-school gap” of 15 to 25 hours per week (Catalyst, 2006). The media have drawn attention to the serious problem this gap creates for working families, with headlines such as “Home Alone—and Worried at Work” (Galt, 2006), “Idle Hours Are a Parent’s Nightmare” (Brady, 2006), and “At Work, Worrying About the
Kids” (Cho, 2006).
Yet systematic research attention has only recently turned to the difficulties of employed parents of school-aged children (e.g., Crouter & McHale,
1993; Updegraff, McHale, Crouter, & Kupanoff, 2001). Some studies describe utilization of various after-school arrangements (e.g., Newman,
Fox, Flynn, & Christeson, 2000; Vandivere, Tout, Zaslow, Calkins, &
Capizzano, 2003), and others focus on after-school arrangements and children’s academic achievement and social behavior (e.g., Vandell et al., 2005).
Some prior research focuses on the problems faced at work by employed parents of school-aged children, but no research to date has focused on these concerns among full-time employed dual-earner couples. Knowing what predicts such concerns among this large group of employed parents could inform workplace, school, and after-school policies.
Previous research demonstrates high parental concerns when parents work long hours and have little control over their work schedules and when children spend more time unsupervised after school (Catalyst, 2006). Fulltime employed dual-earner parents are especially likely to have concerns about children’s welfare after school because both parents are at work and are, therefore, unavailable to supervise children after school. Parents who are anxious and preoccupied at work about their children’s well-being are more likely than their less concerned counterparts to experience disruptions on the job because, for example, concerns likely affect their ability to concentrate.
Meta-analyses and reviews show that work–family conflict predicts work stress, turnover intentions, and absenteeism (T. D. Allen, Herst, Bruck, &
Sutton, 2000; Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005; Kossek
& Ozeki, 1998). We argue that parental concerns because of employed parents’ inability to meet their children’s after-school needs give rise to work–family conflict, particularly from family to work. Specifically, when

Barnett et al. 3 employed parents are at work and, therefore, unable to supervise their schoolaged children after school, they likely experience both time-based and affect-based family-to-work conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). To the extent that they experience family-to-work conflict, parents are likely to report high job disruptions.
It would also be useful to know how parent gender affects relationships linking predictors to parental concerns and concerns to job disruptions. Previous studies linking parental concerns to job-related outcomes did not include enough men to convincingly test for gender differences (Barnett &
Gareis, 2006). Are full-time employed mothers more engaged with their children than their husbands and, therefore, more likely to experience parental concerns because of schedule mismatch? Do links between parental concerns and outcomes differ by gender? Or, as is increasingly argued, are we as a society undergoing “an ongoing shift toward . . . ‘gender convergence,’ an ever-increasing similarity in how men and women live and what they want from their lives” (Lang & Risman, 2007, p. 1)? Because both parents in dualearner couples are almost equally engaged in child rearing (Bond, Thompson,
Galinsky, & Prottas, 2003), there should be minimal gender differences in the antecedents of parental concerns and the links between parental concerns and job disruptions (Simons, 1992). These questions are best addressed in samples of full-time employed dual-earner parents, in whom parental engagement is less confounded with differences in work status or work hours.
Increasing numbers of parents are employed: In 2005, parents of minor children constituted 35.2% of the labor force—close to 50 million employees
(computed from data in Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006a, 2006b). The majority of those children are school aged, or in grades K-12: 72.2% of children aged 0 to 18 years fall into the 5 to 18 age range. Moreover, in 2006,
52% of dual-earner couples had a child younger than 18 (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2007). Thus, a large proportion of the labor force must contend with the after-school gap.
The present sample consists of full-time employees and their full-time employed partners drawn from a larger sample (Catalyst, 2006); in the larger sample, 30.4% of partnered men (vs. 4.4% of partnered women) had partners not employed outside the home. A further 37.0% of partnered men (vs. 6.5% of partnered women) had partners working 30 hours or less per week. In contrast, women were more likely to be sole caretakers: 22.0% of women
(vs. 5.0% of men) had no spouse or live-in partner. Moreover, the larger

4 Journal of Family Issues XX(X) sample was overwhelmingly female (84.3%). Although no gender difference was found in parental after-school concerns, the findings must be considered tentative because of the relatively small number of fathers. Given the large and growing percentage of full-time employed dual-earner couples in the labor force, there is special need to know whether the antecedents of parental concerns and the link between parental concerns and job disruptions differ by gender in this population.
Not all employed parents are equally vulnerable to parental concerns. A previous analysis using the larger data set from which the present sample is drawn found that parents working longer hours tended to report higher concerns
(Catalyst, 2006). Parental concerns also increased as the child’s time spent unsupervised after school increased. Moreover, having a partner who was available to care for children after school protected against parental concerns
(Barnett & Gareis, 2006). Partner availability is critical because of the shortage of slots available in high-quality, affordable after-school programs (Heymann,
2000). In the absence of such programs, parents often have to use less-thanideal, and often unsupervised, care arrangements (Afterschool Alliance, 2008), including self-care (S. E. Allen & Funkhouser, 1998; Sabattini, 2004). These arrangements are unreliable and often break down (Heymann, 2000), undoubtedly contributing to parental anxiety. In the present sample, all parents are employed full-time, as are their partners. It is, therefore, unlikely that either parent will be available to supervise the children after school.
In addition, when employed parents have little control over their work schedules, they have less flexibility to meet their children’s after-school needs. Lack of schedule control was a major predictor of parental concerns in a previous study (Catalyst, 2006). Parents—fathers and mothers alike—who are able to leave work, work from home, bring their children to work, or make and receive phone calls in response to family crises reported fewer parental concerns than their counterparts who had no access to such flexibility options (Barnett & Gareis, 2006). In the present analysis, we operationalize job flexibility as work schedule control, or the degree to which employees can influence when they leave and come to work on a normal workday, when they take a day off, and the number of hours they work.
Although the parent with more responsibility for child care, typically the mother, reported higher parental concerns in earlier analyses (Catalyst,
2006), we do not expect to replicate that finding in the present sample.
Fathers in dual-earner families have been increasingly more engaged with

Barnett et al. 5 their children over time, reflected in a decreasing gap between mothers’ and fathers’ time spent with children (Bond, Galinsky, & Swanberg, 1998; Bond et al., 2003). Thus, there should be less variance on responsibility for child care in the present sample, and so we do not expect this variable to be a significant predictor of parental concerns. We test the following hypothesis about the antecedents of parental concerns:
Hypothesis 1a: Long work hours (own and partner’s), lack of schedule control, and children’s time unsupervised after school will predict high parental concerns, after accounting for 16 covariates
(i.e., parent’s age, gender, negative affectivity, education, household income, occupational level, company tenure, commute time, number of children, and degree of responsibility for child care, along with target child’s gender, grade in school, behavioral or social issues, and time spent in formal program, with respondent’s partner, and with another relative).
Does the relationship linking the predictors above to parental concerns vary by parent gender? In a previous study of parental after-school concerns
(Barnett & Gareis, 2006), the sample was overwhelmingly female (84.3%).
That study found no gender difference in parental concerns, but the relatively small number of fathers raises concern about the reliability of the finding.
However, as noted, that sample and the sample for the present analysis are not comparable; in the earlier analysis, not all parents were married or partnered, and among those who were, partner employment status varied, as did work hours for employed partners.
Most of the research on interrole conflict has examined married, employed mothers (e.g., MacEwen & Barling, 1991). This gender imbalance may reflect the widely held belief that women’s social roles lead them to be more nurturant, relational, and responsive to others’ needs, especially children’s, than men. Yet the empirical evidence paints a more nuanced picture. Although women are more likely to have primary child care responsibility (e.g., Biernat & Wortman, 1991; Steil, 1997), studies suggest that men and women are not inherently different in their capacity to care for children (Barnett & Rivers, 2004; Coltrane, 2000; Sabattini & Leaper, 2004) or in their vulnerability to the strains of combining parenthood with work
(Simons, 1992). Other studies comparing mothers to fathers with primary child care responsibilities find no gender differences in nurturing behavior
(Coltrane, 1996, 2000; Risman, 1986; Risman & Park, 1988). The weight of evidence suggests that situational factors, not innate biological differences,

6 Journal of Family Issues XX(X) account for gender differences in nurturant behavior (e.g., Coltrane, 1996).
When partners have similar employment profiles, gender should not affect the links between parental concerns and job disruptions (Hyde, 2005;
Simons, 1992). Thus, we test the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1b: The link among long work hours (own and partner’s), lack of schedule control, and children’s time unsupervised after school will not be moderated by parent gender, after accounting for the covariates listed above.
As noted, it is useful to conceptualize parental concerns as a family demand that can give rise to time- and anxiety-based family-to-work conflict
(Greenhaus, Allen, & Spector, 2006). Such conflict occurs when pressures within the family interfere with adequate fulfillment of role responsibilities in the work domain, resulting, for example, in increased job disruptions (e.g.,
Beutell & Wittig-Berman, 1999; Ford, Heinen, & Langkamer, 2007). In fact, our previous analyses (Catalyst, 2006) found a direct link between parental concerns and job disruptions.
Some research reports an association between breakdowns in child care arrangements and parental job disruptions. Fernandez (1986) reported that although work interruptions because of family responsibilities decline as children grow older, 39% of mothers and 17% of fathers of children aged 15 to 18 reported such interruptions. Family can also conflict with work in less overt ways. Glass and Estes (1997) noted that “parental worry over sick children left alone at home, latchkey children who travel on their own from school to home to spend the afternoon alone, or the inadequacy of limited child care choices has productivity consequences” (p. 296). In one study,
53% of respondents reported that worrying about their children had caused them to waste time and make mistakes at work (Perry, 1982). In a sample of employees of 20 Fortune 500 companies, 28% of men and 53% of women reported that work or family stress affected their ability to concentrate at work (Rodgers, 1992). Thus, we test the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2a: Parental concerns will predict job disruptions, after accounting for the predictors and covariates listed above.
With respect to the links between parental concerns and job disruptions, social-role theory (Diekman, Eagly, & Kulesa, 2002; Wood & Eagly, 2002)

Barnett et al. 7 would predict gender differences based on the fact that women have traditionally been socialized to be the primary child care providers, even when they are employed. Research shows that even as women’s labor force participation increasingly resembles that of men—that is, full-time, fullyear—women continue to bear most child care responsibilities (Bond et al.,
1998). Although there are signs of significant changes in men’s and women’s attitudes toward appropriate gender roles (Bond, Galinsky, & Hill, 2004) and in the division of child care labor (Bond et al., 1998; Bond et al., 2003), the traditional pattern is still dominant.
In contrast, the gender similarities hypothesis (Hyde, 2005) suggests that meaningful comparisons between men and women can occur only when such gender-related covariates as employment status and work hours are controlled. In studies that do so, residual effects of gender are extremely small.
These findings suggest that parent gender will not moderate the links between antecedents and parental concerns or between parental concerns and job disruptions in a sample of full-time employed parents in dual-earner couples.
Prior research suggests that parental concerns affect job-related outcomes equally for employed fathers and mothers (Barnett & Gareis, 2006; Catalyst,
2006), supporting the gender similarities hypothesis. However, as already noted, respondents in those studies were not all members of full-time employed dual-earner couples, as they are in the present study. We hypothesize,
Hypothesis 2b: The link between parental concerns and job disruptions will not be moderated by parent gender, after accounting for the predictors and covariates mentioned above.
Our covariates were selected because they have shown bivariate relationships with parental concerns or job disruptions in past research (Barnett
& Gareis, 2006; Catalyst, 2006) and/or because our interest in estimating the effect of gender per se requires that we control for as many variables that covary with gender as possible. Thus, our covariates include parent’s age, gender, negative affectivity, education level, household income, occupational level, company tenure, commute time home, number of children, and degree of responsibility for child care, along with the target child’s gender, grade in school, behavioral or social issues, and time spent in a formal program, with the respondent’s partner, and with another relative.

8 Journal of Family Issues XX(X)
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables
Parental concerns
Job disruptions
Work hours (hrs/wk)
Partner work hours (hrs/wk)
Schedule control
Child unsupervised time (hrs/wk)
Parent age
Parent female (%)
Negative affectivity
Educational level a
Household income b
Occupational level c
Company tenure
Commute time home (min)
Number of children
Child care responsibility
Target child female (%)
Target child grade
Child behavioral or social issues
Time in formal program (hrs/wk)
Time with partner (hrs/wk)
Time with relative (hrs/wk)
M or %
1.98
4.11
6.79
1.56
10.07
45.72
2.04
3.58
1.86
2.13
45.80
47.41
3.14
3.39
41.85
66.8
52.9
6.09
3.06
3.74
2.46
1.32
SD
0.55
1.78
1.65
0.81
7.12
30.20
0.80
0.82
0.62
0.59
7.06
9.59
1.01
5.73
6.16
3.55
1.32
6.69
5.76
4.14
Note: N = 936.
a. Education level was rated as 1 (less than high school diploma or GED), 2 (high school diploma
or GED), 3 (some college or other schooling after high school), 4 (associate’s degree), 5 (bachelor’s
degree), 6 (some graduate work), 7 (master’s degree), 8 (professional degree: MD, JD, etc.), or
9 (doctoral degree).
b. Household income was rated as 1 ( < $30,000), 2 ($30,000–$44,999), 3 ($45,000–$59,999),
4 ($60,000–$74,999), 5 ($75,000–$89,999), 6 ($90,000–$104,999), 7 ($105,000–$124,999), or 8 ($125,000+).
c. Occupational level was rated as 1 (individual contributor), 2 (manager, supervisor), 3 (vice
president, director), or 4 (executive, officer, department head, manager of functional area).
Range
1–4
1–5
35–85
35–120
1–5
0–37
23–60
1.00–3.90
1–8
2–8
1–4
< 1–36
2–215
1–5
2–5
1–13
1–5
0–40
0–65
0–40
The sample included 936 respondents (310 men, 626 women). Full-time employed respondents in dual-earner married or cohabiting couples were drawn from a larger sample of U.S. employees at three companies who had a school-aged (i.e., grades K-12) child. Descriptive statistics are shown in

Barnett et al. 9
Table 1. Note that the present sample varied substantially in work hours. As expected among full-time employed dual-earner couples, average household income was fairly high, falling into the $105,000 to $124,999 range. However, 12.9% of the sample had household incomes less than $75,000.
Education was more variable: 34.4% had less than an associate’s degree,
28.2% had an associate’s degree, 7.0% had a bachelor’s degree, and 30.5% had at least some postbaccalaureate education. Some 62.2% of the sample was made up of individual contributors, 25.2% were managers or supervisors, 10.5% were vice presidents or directors, and 2.1% were executives, officers, department heads, or managers of functional areas.
The three companies used different strategies to recruit respondents among their employees. Survey invitations were targeted either to all company employees or only to employees with minor children. As an incentive, respondents in two companies were entered in a drawing for fifteen $100
American Express gift cards. A total of 14,319 employees were invited to participate, and 1,755 eligible employees completed the survey. Based on both the sampling strategies and the study eligibility criteria, the average overall response rate is estimated at 29.7%.
The questionnaire was administered online, took about 15 to 20 minutes to complete, and had about 100 closed-ended questions covering employee demographics, children’s after-school arrangements, parental after-school concerns, workplace supports, job characteristics, workplace attitudes, and employee and organizational outcomes. Parents with more than one schoolaged child were instructed to choose as the target child the one whose name came first alphabetically and to answer child-related questions with regard to that child.
Parental concerns about after-school time were assessed using a revised
11-item measure based on the scale described in Barnett and Gareis (2006).
Respondents used a scale from 1 ( not at all ) to 4 ( extremely ) to indicate their level of concern about the target child’s after-school arrangements in various domains including safety, travel, productive time use, and reliability. Items were developed via focus groups with employees of a Boston-area utility company. Participants were asked to think about their children’s after-school care arrangements and share what was and was not working for them; we

10 Journal of Family Issues XX(X) also asked them to complete a draft measure and tell us if anything was missing, needed clarification, or should be dropped. Based on their responses, we added new items and reworded old ones. Internal consistency of the revised measure is very good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .89 in the present sample.
Job disruptions were assessed using a revised 8-item measure based on the scale described in Barnett and Gareis (2006). Respondents answered questions about job disruptions because of nonwork issues (i.e., being interrupted, distracted, or drained of energy at work; making errors; turning down requests for overtime or travel; and missing deadlines or meetings) on a scale from 1 ( never ) to 5 ( very often ). Items were developed during the same focus groups and in the same way as the items for the parental concerns measure.
Internal consistency of the revised measure is very good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .83 in the present sample.
To assess own and partner work hours , respondents reported the average number of hours they and their partners worked per week, including overtime. Schedule control was assessed with a three-item measure of the degree of influence employees had over when they leave and come to work on a normal workday, how many hours they work, and when they take a day off on a scale from 1 ( very little ) to 5 ( very much ) adapted from Sargent and
Terry (1998). Internal consistency is very good, with a Cronbach’s alpha of
.83 in the present sample. To assess child’s unsupervised time , respondents were asked to report the average number of hours per week the target child spends unsupervised.
Respondents were asked their age and gender (coded as 1 = male and 2 = female ). Negative affectivity was assessed with a revised positively worded version of the 10-item Trait Anxiety Scale (Spielberger, 1983), on which respondents indicated the extent to which various traits are characteristic on a scale from 1 ( almost never ) to 4 ( almost always ). Items include, “I am a steady person” and “I have self-confidence.” Internal consistency of the revised measure is excellent, with a Cronbach’s alpha of .90 in the present sample.
Respondents indicated the highest level of education they had completed using the following categories: 1 ( less than high school diploma or GED ), 2
( high school diploma or GED ), 3 ( some college or other schooling after high school ), 4 ( associate’s degree ), 5 ( bachelor’s degree ), 6 ( some graduate work ), 7 ( master’s degree ), 8 ( professional degree: MD, JD, etc.
), and 9 ( doctoral degree ). They indicated their annual household income from all sources before taxes using the following categories: 1 ( < $30,000 ), 2 ( $30,000–
$44,999 ), 3 ( $45,000–$59,999 ), 4 ( $60,000–$74,999 ), 5 ( $75,000–$89,999 ),
6 ( $90,000–$104,999 ), 7 ( $105,000–$124,999 ), and 8 ( $125,000+ ). The item assessing occupational level was reverse coded as 1 ( individual

Barnett et al. 11 contributor ), 2 ( manager, supervisor ), 3 ( vice president, director ), and 4
( executive, officer, department head, manager of functional area ).
Respondents also answered questions about their years of company tenure , average length of commute home including all stops made on a typical workday, and number of children at home . Respondents indicated their degree of responsibility for child care in terms of planning, remembering, and scheduling day-to-day care of children, including caring for sick children, carpooling, and meal preparation, compared to their partner, other relatives, a nanny, and/ or other hired help. Response options were 1 ( Others have total responsibility ), 2 ( Others have main responsibility and I help out ), 3 ( I share responsibility equally with others ), 4 ( I have main responsibility and others provide some assistance ), and 5 ( I have total responsibility ).
Respondents also reported the target child’s gender (coded as 1 = male and 2 = female ) and grade in school . Respondents indicated child’s behavioral or social issues on a single item rating the extent to which they were concerned about behavioral and/or social issues with the target child on a scale from by 1 ( not at all ) to 5 ( extremely ). Finally, respondents reported the average hours per week the child spends in a formal after-school program , with the respondent’s partner , and with another relative.
The absolute difference was small, but the mothers worked significantly fewer hours per week ( M = 45.20, range = 35–85) than the fathers ( M = 47.04, range = 37.5–83), t (534.1) = 3.56, p = .000, and reported significantly greater child care responsibility ( M = 3.9 vs. 2.9), t (932) = –23.88, p = .000. There was also an unexpected trend for employed fathers to report higher parental concerns than employed mothers ( M = 1.91 vs. 1.84), t (904) = 1.75, p = .080.
Table 2 shows the results of a hierarchical multiple regression equation predicting parental after-school concerns. At Step 1, the 16 covariates were entered. As shown in column 1 of Table 2, the covariates explained a significant proportion of the variance in parental concerns. At Step 2, the predictors
(respondent and partner work hours, respondent schedule control, and child’s time unsupervised) were entered. As shown in column 2 of Table 2, these predictors significantly contributed to R 2 over and above the effects of the covariates. Furthermore, all four predictors were statistically significant, supporting Hypothesis 1a. Specifically, to the extent that full-time employed parents worked longer hours, had partners who worked longer hours, had less schedule control, and had children who spent more time unsupervised, they reported greater parental concerns than their peers who worked shorter hours,

12

Barnett et al. 13 had partners who worked shorter hours, had more schedule control, and had children who spent less time unsupervised.
At Step 3, we conducted a series of moderator regression analyses to test
Hypothesis 1b. In these analyses, four interaction terms of the form parent gender × [predictor] were entered into the main-effects model above. There were no significant moderating effects of gender on the relationships linking work hours, schedule control, or child’s unsupervised time to parental concerns. However, parent gender was a significant moderator of the link between partner work hours and parental concerns (see Table 2, column 3).
Specifically, women’s parental concerns were essentially unrelated to partner work hours, whereas men’s concerns were greater when their partners worked longer hours. Some covariate results warrant discussion. First, at Steps 1 and
2, mothers reported significantly fewer parental concerns than fathers. Moreover, at every step, and not surprisingly, parents who reported more behavioral or social issues with their target child also reported greater parental concerns, as did younger parents.
Table 3 shows the results of a hierarchical multiple regression equation predicting job disruptions from parental concerns. At Step 1, the 16 covariates, along with the four predictors of parental concerns, were entered. As shown in column 1 of Table 3, the covariates explained a significant proportion of the variance in job disruptions. At Step 2, the predictor, parental concerns, was entered, and it significantly contributed to R 2 , supporting
Hypothesis 2a (see Table 3, column 2). Specifically, to the extent that fulltime employed mothers and fathers had higher levels of parental concerns, they reported significantly greater job disruptions.
At Step 3, we conducted a moderator regression analysis to test Hypothesis 2b, entering the interaction term parent gender × parental concerns into the main-effects model described above. Results indicated that the relationship between parental concerns and job disruptions did not differ for mothers and fathers, supporting Hypothesis 2b (see Table 3, column 3). As for the covariates, at both steps, and not surprisingly, parents who had more children reported greater levels of job disruptions. Job disruptions were also predicted by higher occupational level and longer job tenure at both steps, perhaps because these were indicators of greater discretion to take time off work for family matters.
This study contributes in several important ways to the work–family literature as it pertains to full-time employed dual-earner couples with school-aged

14

Barnett et al. 15 children. We found that parental concerns were high to the extent that respondents and their partners worked long hours, respondents had inflexible jobs, and children spent more time unsupervised after school. Parental concerns predicted job disruptions after controlling for such covariates as work hours, schedule control, occupational level, and company tenure, and concerns were linked to job disruptions equally for mothers and fathers. These findings support the conceptualization of parental after-school concerns as giving rise to interrole conflict and affecting job disruptions.
To the extent that either or both parents were working long hours and were, therefore, presumably unavailable after school, respondents reported high parental concerns. As discussed above, however, this relationship was largely driven by the fathers. There was also a significant main effect in which fathers reported higher parental concerns than mothers. How can we understand these findings? In this sample, fathers worked, on average, significantly but only slightly longer hours than mothers. As a result, fathers were rarely home alone with children after school. Previous research suggests that when fathers and mothers are together, fathers do less child care
(Presser, 2003) and children disclose more to mothers than fathers (e.g.,
Crouter & McHale, 1993). In a study of families with mothers working day or evening shifts, fathers knew more about children and children disclosed more to fathers when mothers worked evenings and, consequently, children spent more time alone with fathers (Barnett & Gareis, 2007). Speculatively, parents who are more aware of children’s after-school activities may report fewer parental concerns. If fathers are less aware and less close to their children, their concerns likely increase as their partners work longer hours.
Of the five models testing the moderating effect of parent gender, only one was significant. Thus, in this sample of full-time employed dual-earner parents, three of four predictors of parental concerns did not differ by parent gender, nor did the link between parental concerns and job disruptions. These findings add to the literature on interrole conflict by suggesting that the antecedents and correlates of this type of interrole conflict are virtually identical for full-time employed fathers and mothers, supporting the growing consensus that, after controlling for situational factors, gender has little effect on health and well-being outcomes.
Finally, from the employer perspective, these results suggest that workplace flexibility options are critical in reducing parental after-school concerns.
Unfortunately, although workplace flexibility options are on the rise, availability still does not match need (Bond et al., 2004), and research suggests that even when flexibility options are available, they often are not effectively implemented or communicated (Bagilhole, 2006; Sabattini & Crosby, 2008).

16 Journal of Family Issues XX(X)
Thus, in addition to providing options, employers must ensure that employees are aware of whatever schedule control options are available to them.
As with all studies, this research has limitations. Most important, the data are cross-sectional and, therefore, preclude conclusions about the direction of effects. Future research would benefit from longitudinal data. However, by controlling for negative affectivity, we were able to reduce the confounding effect of a generalized tendency to complain. The nature of the sample precludes generalization to all employed parents of school-aged children. As is typical of workplace-based studies, the response rate was lower than is typical in studies with other sampling designs (e.g., community-based household studies), although it is not particularly low compared to other corporate samples.
For example, in an earlier study of parental concerns, the response rate was
22.9% (Barnett & Gareis, 2006). However, issues of generalizability would be present even with a higher response rate. Because respondents were all working full-time in one of three Fortune 100 companies, they are likely somewhat more highly paid than full-time employees in the overall workforce. To the extent that we found significant relationships between parental concerns and job disruptions in this advantaged sample, it is likely that we are underestimating the absolute level of parental concerns among workers who are not as privileged and who might not be able to afford reliable help with after-school care. Although there is no particular reason to believe that the antecedents of parental concerns would differ in a lower-income sample or that the relationship between parental concerns and outcomes such as job disruptions would differ, further research using more representative samples would help address these questions more definitely. Future research might also test our speculation about the processes underlying fathers’ greater vulnerability to long partner work hours in this sample. Future research should also study the antecedents and correlates of parental concerns among employed single parents and partnered employed parents whose partners work part-time or not at all. These limitations notwithstanding, the growing body of research on parental afterschool concerns suggests that this form of family demands, which can act as a precursor to interrole conflict, warrants further research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Financial Disclosure/Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Barnett et al. 17
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