ArticleSocial forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation2021
Hard Times: Routine Schedule Unpredictability and Material Hardship among Service Sector Workers.
Article in Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Unstable hours, unequal health: Gendered occupational health costs of work-hour volatility in the U.S.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- Work Schedule Quality and the Production of Parental Stress and Parenting Time.The Social service review · 2026Article
- The Double Bind of Precarious Work: Creating Need and Undermining Support.Sociological science · 2026Article
- Temporal Autonomy: Schedule Instability as a Threat to Perceived Dignity in the U.S. Service Sector.Social problems · 2025Article
- Parental Exposure to Work Schedule Instability and Child Sleep Quality.Work, employment & society : a journal of the British Sociological Association · 2025Article
- COVID-19 employment shocks and safety net expansion: Health effects on displaced workers.Social science research · 2024Article
- Work Conditions and Family Food Insecurity Among Adults Ages 18-64: United States, 2021.National health statistics reports · 2024Article
- Labor market pathways to job quality mobility in the service sector: Evidence from the "Great Resignation".Research in social stratification and mobility · 2024Article
- Precarious Employment and Well-Being: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic.Work and occupations · 2023Article
- Surviving in Crisis Mode: The Effect of Material Hardship and Social Support on Emotional Wellbeing Among People in Poverty During COVID-19.Social indicators research · 2023Article
- Mandates Narrow Gender Gaps In Paid Sick Leave Coverage For Low-Wage Workers In The US.Health affairs (Project Hope) · 2022Article
- Maternal exposure to work schedule unpredictability and child behavior.Journal of marriage and the family · 2022Article
- Frequency of Workplace Controls and Associations With Safety Perceptions Among a National Sample of US Food Retail Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of occupational and environmental medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
American policymakers have long focused on work as a key means to improve economic wellbeing. Yet, work has become increasingly precarious and polarized. This precarity is manifest in low wages, but also in unstable and unpredictable work schedules that often vary significantly week-to-week with little advance notice. We draw on new survey data from The Shift Project on 37,263 hourly retail and food service workers in the United States. We assess the association between routine unpredictability in work schedules and household material hardship. Using both cross-sectional models and panel models, we find that workers who receive shorter advanced notice, those who work on-call, those who experience last minute shift cancellation and timing changes, and those with more volatile work hours are more likely to experience hunger, residential, medical, and utility hardships as well as more overall hardship. Just-in-time work schedules afford employers a great deal of flexibility, but at a heavy cost to workers' economic security.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.