Over the last three decades there has been a rise in the number of workers employed during nonstandard (evening and overnight) hours; accompanying this trend has been a renewed interest in documenting workers, their families, and outcomes associated with nonstandard-hour employment. However, there are important gaps in the current literature. Few have considered how parents who work nonstandard hours care for their children when parental care is unavailable; little is known about who participates in nonparental child care during nonstandard hours, or the characteristics of those who participate. Most pressingly from a policy perspective, it is unclear how participation in nonparental child care during nonstandard hours influences child well-being. This study aims to fill these gaps. This dissertation paints a descriptive portrait of children and parents who use nonstandard child care, explores the relationship between nonstandard hours of nonparental child care participation and various measures of child well-being, and identifies longitudinal patterns of participation in nonstandard-hour child care. I find that children who participate in nonstandard-hours of nonparental child care look significantly different from those who do not participate. In particular, children are more likely to be older, identify as black or Hispanic, and reside with younger, unmarried parents who have lower levels of education. Estimates also suggest a negative relationship between participation in nonstandard-hour child care and child well-being. Specifically, children who participate in nonstandard-hour care show decreased school engagement and school readiness, increased behavioral problems, decreased social competency, and lower levels of physical health. These findings have serious implications for social and education policy.

The stories that we tell matter. Public storytelling influences how we think about ourselves and how we treat others. This project explores how Arizona's Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB 1070) affected the development of social identities such as citizen, immigrant (documented and undocumented), and public administrator through public storytelling. The question of how a public policy shapes identity development is relatively under-explored in the literature. Critical aspects of feminist and political theory demonstrate that identity is affected by discourses, such as performatives and accounts of oneself. A public policy authorizes public administrators to issue or demand discourses, such as performatives and accounts of oneself, from the individuals they encounter. Moreover, the text of a public policy resembles an account of oneself, delivered on behalf of a fabricated subject. In this project, the structural elements and storytelling techniques of SB 1070 are drawn out through tools derived from the field of narratology. When applied to the text of SB 1070, narratological tools reveal four major organizing principles or plots, all of which center on the identification and punishment of four types of individuals or organizations: (a) employers of undocumented immigrants; (b) transporters/shielders of undocumented immigrants; (c) undocumented immigrants; (d) state and local government agencies or officials that do not fully implement federal immigration law. An analysis of 321 news stories published after SB 1070's passage reveals that some plots resonated more than others with storytellers. The storytelling about SB 1070 also makes visible the policy's power as a discourse to unsettle the identities of citizens, immigrants (documented and undocumented), and public administrators. It also raises concerns about who bears the responsibility for the impact of policies like SB 1070, which have been passed but not implemented, and yet have a tangible impact on the lives of citizens and other residents. These findings suggest that not only can public policy unsettle social identities, but proposes complicated questions about who is responsible for the harm inflicted on others when a public policy is passed.