Factsheet: Six frequently asked questions about schedule quality and Fair Workweek laws across the United States

FAQ one: What are the elements of schedule quality?

• Social scientist Susan Lambert of the University of Chicago identifies five ways that work schedules can be low quality:¹⁹⁰

1. Instability: The number of hours offered and timing of work vary week to week.
2. Unpredictability: Workers cannot anticipate when they will be scheduled to work.
3. Nonstandard timing: Scheduled hours occur early in the morning, late at night, or on the weekends.
4. Inadequate hours: Scheduled hours are too few to earn an adequate paycheck.
5. Lack of input: Workers have little or no say in when they work.

FAQ two: Do some workers prefer jobs with unstable or unpredictable schedules because they offer flexibility?

• Logic suggests that offering schedules that are unstable or unpredictable provides flexibility to employers. Research suggests, however, that workers do not experience these types of schedules as flexible.
• New research by sociologist Peter Fugiel at the University of Illinois looks at a nationally representative sample of workers in their 20s and 30s, and finds that workers in jobs with unstable schedules are 13 percentage points less likely to report having a flexible work schedule than they do in similar jobs with stable and predictable schedules.¹⁹¹ (See Figure 1.)
• The same study finds that workers with unpredictable schedules are 17 percentage points less likely to report having a flexible schedule than they do in similar jobs with stable and predictable schedules. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1

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• Fugiel’s research also shows that workers in unstable and unpredictable schedule arrangements report lower job satisfaction than they do in similar jobs with stable and predictable schedules.

FAQ three: Are workers compensated for taking jobs with less desirable scheduling practices?

• Fugiel further finds that workers in jobs with unstable and unpredictable schedules receive approximately the same pay as they do in similar jobs with better-quality schedules.¹⁹² They do not receive higher pay to compensate for their lower-quality schedules.

FAQ four: Do these scheduling practices help businesses’ bottom lines?

• Research finds that low-quality schedules do not help businesses become more productive and profitable.
• Research examining the experience of low-wage, service-sector workers, for example, finds that turnover—which is costly to businesses—increases when schedule quality is low.¹⁹³ (See Figure 2.) Other research finds similar trends across a wider range of industries.¹⁹⁴

Figure 2

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• In fact, a randomized controlled trial conducted in partnership with The Gap, Inc. Found that higher-quality schedules resulted in a 3.3 percent increase in sales and a total increase in store productivity of 5.1 percent.¹⁹⁵

FAQ five: What are the consequences of low-quality schedules for workers and their families?

• Research conducted by public policy professor Daniel Schneider of Harvard University and sociologist Kristen Harknett of the University of California, San Francisco finds that when low-wage, service-sector workers have unpredictable schedules, they are more likely to experience hunger.¹⁹⁶ (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3

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• Schneider and Harknett also find that parents with unpredictable schedules struggle to find child care. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4

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• Further, research by economist Elizabeth Ananat of Columbia University and psychologist Anna Gassman-Pines of Duke University examining service-sector workers with young children finds that unpredicted changes to schedules decrease parents’ sleep quality and increase their reports of experiencing negative moods.¹⁹⁷
• Because workers of color—and women of color in particular—are disproportionately exposed to unpredictable and unstable schedules, they are more likely to feel these consequences than other workers.¹⁹⁸

FAQ six: Do Fair Workweek laws improve schedule quality?

• Rigorous academic research finds that Fair Workweek laws do not completely eradicate low-quality scheduling practices, but they do significantly decrease their prevalence.
• A study of the Fair Workweek law in Emeryville, California, finds that the ordinance decreased last-minute schedule changes and increased worker well-being—though some estimates did not reach statistical significance, perhaps because of the study’s relatively small sample size.¹⁹⁹
• Using a larger sample, an evaluation of Seattle’s Secure Scheduling Ordinance finds significant positive impacts.²⁰⁰ Seattle’s law increased the share of workers who know their schedule at least 2 weeks in advance by 11 percentage points and decreased the share of workers experiencing last-minute shift changes without pay by 13 percentage points.²⁰¹
• The implementation of the Seattle law was also associated with an 11 percentage point increase in reports of good sleep quality and a 10 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of experiencing a material hardship, such as hunger or housing instability.²⁰²