a 3-year-old child
a full-time job
a well-known person
a better-qualified person.
The compound modifiers are hyphenated because they describe a thing (a noun) that comes right after the description.
If the description comes after the noun, there is no hyphen:
The child is 3 years old.
He works full time.
It is well known.
She is better qualified.
The exception is the word very and adverbs that end in -ly. These are never hyphenated: a very good time, an easily remembered rule, a continually barking dog.
Hyphens are also used to clear up ambiguity: a small-business owner. This clarifies that it is the business and not the owner that is small.
Suspended hyphenation can be tricky. It goes like this: the 3- and 4-year-old class.
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