The realities of low-wage jobs—which include short notice of work hours, regularly shifting schedules, and last-minute shift changes—can make it difficult for families to coordinate child care and work. Such difficulties can lead to disruptions. For example, when children are sick, transportation issues arise, or providers are unavailable to cover a work shift, parents or other household members may need to find alternate care arrangements or miss work time. These care-work disruptions may be experienced differently by various racial/ethnic groups, given differences in household, work patterns, and child care utilization characteristics.

In this brief, we estimate the prevalence of care-work disruptions and their consequences for parents’ work in low-income households (defined as incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold), examining how both the prevalence and consequences of disruptions may differ for immigrant Hispanic,^a nonimmigrant Hispanic, Black, and White households. We draw on data from the 2012 National Study of Early Care and Education (NSECE) focusing on households with children younger than age 13 and at least one employed caregiver (i.e., households at risk of experiencing disruptions and the target age population for federal child care subsidies). In supplemental analyses, we examine disruptions for the subsample of households with children younger than age 6 to explore whether the coordination of child care and work differs for children not yet in (or just entering) formal schooling.