Having children changes work patterns
Vancouver Sun / Canwest News Service
By Shannon Proudfoot
September 2, 2009

The delicate balancing act between parenting and job responsibilities has carved out different work patterns for Canadian families with and without children, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

Couples with children are less likely to work long hours and more likely to have one spouse -- almost always the woman -- work very few hours, the agency found. But while the addition of children ratchets up the stress level for families who work average workweeks, those who consistently put in a lot of overtime didn't see their stress levels increase when they became parents, says Sebastien LaRochelle-Cote, author of the report….

Another surprising finding is that in families with children, parents who work very long hours make less income on average ($86,500 annually) than those who work something closer to a 40-hour week ($97,700 annually). That might be because those parents make a lower hourly wage and need to work more hours to make ends meet, LaRochelle-Cote says, or because more are self-employed and longer hours and lower income tend to come with the territory.

"These people are simply running to catch up," said Clarence Lochhead, executive director of the Vanier Institute of the Family.

When soon-to-be-parents sit down to figure out how they'll afford parenthood and what they want their family life to look like, child care is often the "reality that comes crashing down on the kitchen table," he says. Pragmatic considerations like what's in the budget and who can afford to take time off work often override individual preferences and values, he says, and statistics fail to capture those compromises.

….  Housework often falls off the priority list in favour of family time, she says, and while she'd welcome the chance to reduce her work hours, she hasn't found anything that meets their needs in terms of scheduling, benefits and income.

"I would prefer, especially the age they are, to work part-time right now, but I do feel like that would possibly be detrimental to my career," she said.

Canada lags behind countries like Finland and the Netherlands in providing more flexible work options to parents, says Donna Lero, Jarislowsky chair in families and work at the University of Guelph. The options available to parents in this country are often all or nothing, she says, but work-family balance is becoming a major issue for families, employers and government.

"The real storylines hinted at here are that couples make trade-offs," she said. "They're not always preferred choices; sometimes it's the best one can do. It's time, it's income, it's time to be involved with children."