The Job Characteristics of Low-Income Hispanic Parents

Parental employment can increase the availability of financial resources that can support children’s development. As such, many publicly funded programs designed to support children in low-income families encourage and support parental employment. However, there are additional characteristics of parents’ work that matter for children, characteristics that help determine the availability of non-monetary resources and family dynamics. In this report, we describe the job characteristics of employed low-income Hispanic parents across four domains associated with child well-being: job security, work schedule, earnings, and employer-provided benefits. We look at mothers and fathers separately because of the gendered nature of work. Additionally, we examine differences among Hispanics by nativity, and compare the job characteristics of low-income Hispanic parents to those of low-income non-Hispanic black (“black”) and non-Hispanic white parents (“white”).