Families feeling workplace stress; Most employers are not giving parents needed flexibility
The Daily News (Nanaimo)
January 20, 2009
By: Shannon Proudfoot

Canadians are straining more than ever to balance family and work, but a decade of efforts to improve the situation has done little to ease the pressure, a new report finds.

From lost productivity to parents getting sick to children's behavioural problems, the issue has potentially far-reaching consequences, according to a recently released study from the Vanier Institute of the Family.

The current economic downturn will likely mean even more challenges, says executive director Clarence Lochhead.

"If companies downsize, does that mean workloads are increasing for people who are remaining? Do companies who are looking to save costs and protect the bottom line now get rid of whatever kinds of programming they would have been doing around work-family balance?" he says.

"I hope not, I hope those kinds of initiatives are not seen as luxuries."

Forty-four per cent of Canadians say their work has a negative impact on their family and interferes with the time they spend with their children, the report found, while 26% of fathers and 33% of mothers suffer excessive stress from lack of time.

The results come from a comprehensive review of existing research written by Jacques Barrette, a management professor at the University of Ottawa.

The workplace has been "transformed" in the last decade, says Barrette.

A growing push for increased productivity, the need to compete in a global marketplace and technology that keeps workers digitally tethered to work have contributed to heavier workloads, he adds.

"Organizations have made relatively few adaptations up until now to relieve parents of the stress caused by this conflict between work and family," he says.

Even in the 20% of workplaces that offer flexible scheduling, it's of little help if employees don't feel comfortable using the flexible hours, Barrette says….

Parents grappling with tension between their work and home life can experience depression and mood disorders, alcohol and drug dependence, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disorders, allergies and migraines, Barrette found in his review of the research.

Preschoolers whose parents were less involved in their activities were more likely to experience behaviour problems, and overloaded parents may have cooler relationships and more conflict with their teenagers, leading to lower self-esteem.

In financial terms, work-family conflict is estimated to cost $2.7 billion a year directly and $10 billion indirectly through issues like absenteeism, lateness and high turnover.

Workers who experience a lot of work-family conflict, for instance, miss an average of 13.2 days of work a year, compared to 5.2 days for those with less stress.

"The situation, for all that we know about it and for as long as we have been talking about it, doesn't seem to be a whole lot better, and in fact in many respects I think it's arguably worse," says Lochhead.

FACTBOX

Findings from another new report from the Vanier Institute of the Family, written by Roger Sauve:

Average time spent with family on a typical work day has shrunk by 18 per cent in two decades, from 250 minutes a day in 1986 to 206 minutes in 2005

Workers spent 13 more minutes per day on work and related activities in 2005 than they did in 1992, adding up to an extra 54 hours of work each year. Most of that increase is due to longer commutes and the rest to more technology-enabled working from home.

There's a direct trade-off between work and family time: people who worked three to five hours a day enjoyed 5.9 hours of family time daily in 2005, while those who toiled for seven to eight hours had just 3.9 hours with their families.

Husbands put in an average of 7.4 hours per day at paid work and wives 5.6 hours, but the positions are reversed when it comes to unpaid work like household chores, child care and cooking.

712,000 Canadians aged 45 to 64 belong to the "sandwich generation," providing elder care while they still have children under 25 at home. Of those, 70 per cent say they feel very or somewhat stressed about their responsibilities, and 26 per cent have had to work fewer hours to accommodate them.

Almost one-quarter of Canadians (23 per cent) work overtime in an average week, and 12 per cent work unpaid overtime.

Only 27 per cent of people are convinced that work-family balance is attainable in our society, and just 17 per cent believe our society supports workers achieving that.