Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Economic and Psychological Well-Being of Hourly Service Workers and their Families

Project Description

Around 1,000 hourly service workers with young children in a large US city were sampled with an initial focus on work schedule unpredictability and worker and family well-being. In the form of a daily SMS text messages, participants were asked about their work and home experiences as well as their well-being every day at various points four weeks in fall 2019 and for two weeks in winter 2020. The data collection then shifted with the emergence of COVID-19 to reflect pandemic-related concerns such as food insecurity, job loss, income, and access to pandemic-specific and broader social safety net policy supports. Data collection is ongoing.

Project Goals

The initial goal of this project was to understand how unpredictable work schedules affect hourly service workers and their families. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project then added goals including

  • Understanding how the pandemic affected socioeconomically disadvantaged families, considering both economic and psychological well-being.
  • Examining how unequal access to social programs exacerbates racial inequities.

Related Findings and Resources