Approximately 20% of workers are employed during nonstandard work shifts, and research on this topic has begun to increase. As the survey is a primary mode of data collection on nonstandard work, it is important for sociological practitioners and researchers to understand the implications of using different work shift measures in survey research. In the following study, data was used from the 2004 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (n = 6,559) to compare both self-defined and clock-derived measures of work shift. A high level of overall agreement was found between these two different types of measures; however, agreement was not found among all individual types of shifts. In addition, certain demographic characteristics resulted in higher odds of agreement between these two work shift measures. Drawing from these results, the strengths, limitations, and implications for using self-defined and clock-derived work shift measures in survey research are discussed.
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