ABSTRACT
Work-family scholars have long expressed concern for workers with limited education and income. However, only recently have they focused attention on the dilemmas of parents in low-skilled jobs (e.g., Booth, Crouter, & Shanahan, 1999; Dodson, Manuel, & Bravo, 2002; Heymann, 2000; Lambert, 1999). Although these scholars have begun to detail the ways in which low-income parents cope with the dual responsibilities of paid work and parenting, they have paid less attention to how employers structure low-skilled jobs and how workplace practices affect family life. Another arena of study, welfare policy research, has begun to attend to the work side of the welfare-to-work transition (e.g., Holzer, 1990) and the implications of employment characteristics such as earnings, work intensity, and welfare-work combinations for parenting and child well-being (e.g., Chase-Landsdale et al., 2003; Dunifon, Kalil, & Danziger, 2003; Heymann, 2000). With a few notable exceptions (e.g., Dodson et al., 2002; Newman, 1999), however, this research relies on relatively crude jobrelated measures and, thus, offers limited understanding of variations in employer practices that may matter for parents in different kinds of low-skilled jobs. If we are to improve low-skilled jobs, it seems critical to develop an understanding about work that goes beyond conventional indicators, such as hours, wages, and occupation, and that goes beyond industry and firm-level characteristics, such as churning rates, to reveal how the complexities of work are implemented in daily employer practice.
