This Families Commission study focuses on the experiences of a range of New Zealand families selected from industries that are most affected by long working hours.
According to the 2006 Census, three out of 10 full time workers work 50 hours or more a week, which is very high by international standards. Many parents with dependant children work 80 hours between them. This report draws on data from the New Zealand 2006 census, a review of the literature, and a small qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with seventeen families with dependent children where at least one partner was working long hours.
This study found that parents’ working hours were driven by the requirements of their jobs, income, and the cultures of their workplaces, as well as the satisfaction work provided. Many parents felt unable to reduce their hours, despite believing that their hours had a variety of negative impacts on family life. A number of factors mediated the impact of long hours of work, including:
- the availability of extended family for childcare and support
- having flexible work arrangements and control over hours of work (including both the number of hours and when hours were worked)
- how satisfied spouses were with the number of hours of paid work
- the impact of these hours on the availability of the long hours worker to spend time with children and to do a share of the household chores.
The study is a companion to broader research done by the Families Commission and the Department of Labour which used Census data to find that those in management, agriculture and road transport and those on low incomes often work more than 50 hours a week.
Purpose
The objective of this research was to gain an understanding of the impact of long working hours on family life and family wellbeing. We saw how working long hours affected the whole family. Those working long hours experienced fatigue and sleep deprivation, stress and other negative impacts on health and fitness, and reported having less energy to sustain relationships, including parenting. The spouse of the long hours worker could be overloaded with all the parenting and domestic duties, often while simultaneously working, while those spouses outside the paid workforce felt unable to take on paid work or training.
The objectives for this project included:
- to gain an understanding of the impact of long working hours on family life and family wellbeing
- to gain an understanding of the factors parents considered when making decisions about working long hours, including the hours worked, who worked them and the role of income(s)
- to explore the trade-offs that working long hours involved, for both the family as a whole and the individual(s) working long hours
- to explore the reasons family members worked long hours
- to explore how external factors such as travel time impacted on the effects of long working hours.
Key Results
The research found that reasons why families worked long hours included income (maintaining a basic standard of living or being able to afford ‘extras’); the requirements of the job (including the physical demands of the job, customer demand and having a high workload); the pressure of workplace and industry culture; and the desire to reap the more intangible rewards of work. Few workers worked long hours because of only one factor, with the exception of the workers in the lowest income brackets, who worked very long hours just to meet basic expenses.
Other impacts on families included not having family holiday time; an inability to spend special occasions together; children not being able to participate in activities such as after-school sports; quality family time spent mainly in the car; and a sense of life rushing by. Because the partner of the long hours worker could not depend on someone being there to take over the care of the children, this affected their ability to have time out and plan ahead.
Those working long hours also identified some positive effects of working long hours. These included earning extra money (for those on hourly wages); instilling a good work ethic in children; gaining satisfaction from work; and staying off a benefit. However, some of these factors could be attributed to engaging in paid work in general, rather than from working long hours in particular.
Some couples appeared to be under stress as a result of long hours of work; however, this was extremely variable, and appeared to be related to both partners’ satisfaction with working hours and the perceived effect on their children. However, few couples spent any couples-only time together on a regular basis.
Few families engaged in active decision making about working long hours; rather, the hours seemed to creep up over time. For a number of long hours workers and their families, long working hours were never discussed. This may have been because, in some cases, long hours were viewed as an integral and taken-for-granted part of the job or industry the long hours worker was employed in.
There were a number of key factors that reduced the impact of long working hours on the family. These included the availability of extended family for childcare and support; having flexible work arrangements and control over hours of work (including both the number of hours and when hours were worked); and how satisfied both spouses were with the number of hours of paid work and the impact of these hours on the availability of the long hours worker to spend time with children and to do a share of the household chores.
Other factors exacerbated the impact of long hours of work. These included the amount and duration of work-related travel; poor health within the family; and having no control over working hours or arrangements. As such, long hours of work were only one factor among many that affected family functioning and wellbeing.
The role of income was complex. Families with higher incomes had the potential to ease the impact of long hours (through purchasing services such as cleaners, nannies and gardeners). However, higher incomes also acted as a trap with families feeling they needed to maintain long working hours to afford their current lifestyle. Some families were trapped in jobs with very long hours as they had few qualifications (and thus few occupational alternatives) and needed the income that the additional hours brought or the job entailed.
Many of the families interviewed used the possibility of change in the future to assist them in coping with the realities of their daily situation. All of the families in the qualitative research, bar one, had plans for the future which would enable them to reduce the hours of the long hours worker. However, in some cases, these plans were either unrealistic or vague.
This research raised broader concerns about how the long working hours and the work patterns of parents with dependent children are affecting family life. Working long hours affects the ability of families to achieve a good work-life balance. Policies relating to income support provision, paid parental leave, access to childcare and promotion of workplace practices (eg quality flexible work) are all an essential part of addressing this issue. The Families Commission believes there is significant room for improvement to policy and practice, particularly in the areas of:
- parental leave
- childcare
- out of school services.
Policies in these areas, along with those related to family income levels, impact on the work-life balance of those working long hours.
Other findings from this research are of interest to both policymakers and employers, particularly with regard to fatigue, stress and productivity.
These include:
- Long hours work affects productivity. By addressing issues of working hours and job size, businesses can improve their bottom line and increase employee satisfaction and retention of skilled staff.
- Long hours of work can be accompanied by fatigue and stress, having significant health and safety implications in some occupational areas.
- Long hours of work are often driven by the culture of both workplaces and industries, influencing employees’ perceptions of the feasibility of flexible work arrangements.
- Employers need to be encouraged and supported to look at whether they have a long working hours culture. The attitude of individual managers has been shown to be important. Further work to explore strategies that ameliorate the impact of long working hours could have significant benefits that go beyond their impact on family functioning and wellbeing.
- Our research participants saw educational qualifications as providing a wider choice so that they could move to occupations that did not require long hours. Further consideration should be given to how to support workers who have limited education to obtain qualifications and skills that support job mobility.