PDF Version 558 KB
ISBN 0-662-41606-6
By
Dr. Linda Duxbury,
Professor, School of Business,
Carleton University
Dr. Chris Higgins,
Professor, Richard Ivey School of Business,
University of Western Ontario
The previous reports in this series have demonstrated that work1-life balance is important to individual employees, the organizations that they work for, the families that support and rely on them, and the society in which they live. They have also established that the proportion of the Canadian workforce reporting high levels of work-life conflict increased substantively between 1991 and 2001.
The increase in the proportion of the Canadian workforce at risk of high work-life conflict can be attributed to widely documented demographic and structural changes in the work and family domains. The fact that most Canadians now live in dual-income and single-parent families rather than the traditional male breadwinner family means that most working Canadians have dual responsibilities -- to their employer and their family. Our data indicate, in fact, that most employees today (both men and women) have substantive responsibilities at home (i.e. responsibility for child care, elder care or both) that they have to satisfy while simultaneously fulfilling duties associated with paid employment. Demographic factors that have also been linked to more work-life conflict include increased female participation in the labour force, increased divorce rates, increased life expectancy, more dual-income and single-parent families, more families with simultaneous child care and elder care demands, and a redistribution of traditional gender role responsibilities. On the work front, globalization, sophisticated office technology, the need to deal with constant change, the movement toward a contingent workforce, and a growth in atypical forms of work have also been linked to increases in work-life conflict.
Who is more likely to report high levels of work-life conflict? The answer is, quite simply, unknown at this time. The key objective of this report is to rectify this situation by identifying factors that are associated with the incidence of four forms of work-life conflict: role overload, work to family interference, family to work interference and caregiver strain.
This report uses data collected for part of the 2001 National Study on Balancing Work, Family and Lifestyle to answer the following questions:
The following steps were followed to address these questions. A literature review was conducted first to allow us to identify a number of possible predictors of work-life conflict. These predictors were then categorized into three main groups describing an employee's socio-demographic circumstances, their work and non-work demands, and the organizational culture in which the employee worked. MANCOVA and regression techniques were then used to determine how effective the various predictors were at forecasting the four different forms of work-life conflict examined in this study.
What demographic conditions and life circumstances place an employee at risk with respect to the various forms of work-life conflict? It is difficult to answer this question at this time as much of the empirical research linking key demographic variables, such as education, income and family type, with the incidence of work-life conflict is dated, limited in nature, and has yielded inconsistent or non-significant findings. This report provides a more comprehensive look at this issue by exploring the link between lifecycle stage, family type, age of children, socio-economic status, the employee's community (i.e. rural/urban, size of community, region of Canada), and characteristics of work (i.e. sector of employment, work arrangement, employment status, years with organization, union membership) and work-life conflict.
This report also seeks to increase our understanding of the relationship between the various demands that employees face (at work and outside of work) and the different forms of work-life conflict. Work demands have generally been defined as referring to a set of prescribed tasks that a person performs while occupying a position in an organization. Work hours is one of the most widely studied structural aspects of employment in the work-life literature. It is generally agreed that the number of hours worked contributes to the experience of job demands (pressures arising from excessive workloads and workplace time pressures), a major workplace stressor. Why do employees devote long hours to work if such activities increase work-life conflict? There are several possible explanations for this phenomenon, including the following:
There is much less of a consensus on what should be included within the umbrella of non-work demands. Non-work may refer to activities and responsibilities associated with the family domain, as well as activities and obligations that go beyond one's own family situation. Social roles typically included within this category include leisure (interpreted to mean "spare time") obligations and responsibilities associated with family membership (i.e. household activities, caregiving) as well as social obligations (i.e. volunteer activities, community activities).
The final goal of this study is to explicate the link between workplace culture and work-life conflict. Workplace culture refers to a deep level of shared beliefs and assumptions, many of which operate below the conscious level of those who are members of the culture. A supportive work culture has been defined as "the shared assumptions, beliefs and values regarding the extent to which organizations value and support the integration of work and family lives for women and men." There is often a gap within organizations between formal work-life policies and informal practices which make balance more difficult. Research in this area has identified several sets of norms that may make work-life balance more difficult. The first, what we refer to in this report as a culture of "work or family," are cultural expectations that an employee who wants to advance will put work ahead of family The second, what we call "the culture of hours," refers to organization expectations and pressures that steer workers who value job security and/or promotion to put in long hours or take work home. In such organizations, employees who reject the culture of "long hours" are less likely to be valued or promoted.
The findings presented in this report offer policymakers, academics and practitioners a better understanding of what contributes to work-life conflict in Canada. Separation of work-life conflict into its four parts allows us to identify unique and overlapping risk factors associated with the various forms of work-life conflict. Such an examination will improve our understanding of the sources of work-life conflict which will, in turn, enable policymakers and organizations to target their interventions, policies and programs at the appropriate factors. By taking a multidimensional approach to our conceptualizations of both work demands and work-life conflict, this research helps us to identify exactly which work demands contribute to what sorts of problems for which groups. Such specificity, which is currently not available to either policymakers or organizations (most research has focused on hours of work per week and either a global measure of work-life conflict or role interference), should help interested parties to identify specific interventions to ease the different forms of work-life conflict. Finally, the examination of the impact of organizational culture on the incidence of the various forms of work-life conflict should increase our understanding of why employees working for organizations which are "best practice" with respect to their policy platform still report high levels of stress and conflict between work and family.
The sample consists of 31,571 Canadian employees who work for medium to large (i.e. 500 or more employees) organizations in three sectors of the economy: public (federal, provincial and municipal governments), private, and not-for-profit (defined in this study to include organizations in the health care and educational sectors). In total, 100 companies participated in the study: 40 from the private sector, 22 from the public sector and 38 from the not-for-profit sector. The sample is distributed as follows:
The 2001 survey sample is well distributed with respect to age, region, community size, job type, education, personal income, family income, and family's financial well-being. The mean age of the respondents is 42.8 years. About half of the respondents are highly educated male and female knowledge workers (i.e. managers and professionals). One in three is a clerical or administrative employee; one in five holds a technical or production position. Most respondents (75%) are married or living with a partner and 69% are part of a dual-income family. Eleven percent are single parents. Twelve percent live in rural areas. One quarter of the respondents indicate that money is tight in their family; 29% of respondents earn less than $40,000 per year. One in three of the respondents has a high school education or less.
The majority of respondents have responsibilities outside of work. Seventy percent are parents (average number of children for parents in the sample is 2.1); 60% have elder care responsibilities (average number of elderly dependents is 2.3); 13% have responsibility for the care of a disabled relative; and 13% have both child care and elder care demands (i.e. are part of the "sandwich generation"). The fact that the demographic characteristics of the sample correspond closely to national data provided by Statistics Canada suggests that the findings from this study can be generalized beyond this research.
Role overload is having too much to do in a given amount of time. This form of work-life conflict occurs when the total demands on time and energy associated with the prescribed activities of multiple roles are too great to perform the roles adequately or comfortably. Most employees in our sample (58%) are currently experiencing high levels of role overload. Another 30% report moderate levels of role overload. Only 12% of the respondents in this sample report low levels of overload. Our research suggests that the proportion of the workforce experiencing high levels of role overload has increased substantially over time (i.e. an 11% increase in 2001 compared to 1991).
Work to family interference occurs when work demands and responsibilities make it more difficult for an employee to fulfill family role responsibilities. One in four of the Canadians in this sample reports that his or her work responsibilities interfere with the ability to fulfill responsibilities at home. Almost 40% of the respondents report moderate levels of interference. The proportion of the Canadian workforce with high levels of work to family interference has not changed over the past decade.
Family to work interference occurs when family demands and responsibilities make it more difficult for an employee to fulfill work role responsibilities. Only 10% of the Canadians in this sample report high levels of family to work interference. Another third report moderate levels of family to work interference. Our data suggest that the percentage of working Canadians who give priority to family rather than work has doubled over the past decade.
Approximately one in four of the individuals in this sample experiences what can be considered to be high levels of caregiver strain: physical, financial or mental stress that comes from looking after an elderly dependent. While most respondents to this survey (74%) rarely experience this form of work-life conflict, 26% report high levels of caregiver strain.
The following conclusions about the occurrence of role overload can be drawn from this study.
The following conclusions with respect to the prediction of work to family interference can be drawn from the data:
Data supporting the following conclusions with respect to the prediction of family to work interference are outlined in this report:
The following conclusions can be drawn with respect to the circumstances associated with caregiver strain:
Examination of the data leads to other key conclusions with respect to the prediction of the various forms of work-life conflict:
Organizational culture and work demands are the two most important predictors of role overload and work to family interference. With respect to work demands, both role overload and work to family interference are positively associated with hours per month in unpaid overtime, hours spent in work per week, hours per week in SWAH and time away from home in job-related travel. Organizational cultures that focus on hours (i.e. advancement limited if you do not work long hours or if you say no to more work), emphasize work or family (i.e. family responsibilities and family leave are perceived to limit advancement) and are non-supportive of balance are also linked to higher levels of role overload and work to family interference.
The most important predictors of caregiver strain and family to work interference are associated with the family domain (i.e. non-work demands, family type, adult role responsibilities). While family to work interference appears to be primarily a function of demands associated with child care, caregiver strain seems to be driven by elder care issues. Both of these forms of work-life conflict are positively associated with hours per week providing elder care, hours per week delivering child care and responsibility for elder care. Caregiver strain is strongly associated with the provision of elder care.
The following predictors of work to family interference are unique to this form of work-life conflict:
The following conclusions with respect to gender differences in the prediction of work-life conflict can be drawn from this study:
There is no set of factors that places both male and female employees at risk of all four forms of work-life conflict. If we limit ourselves to an examination of the predictors of role overload, work to family interference and family to work interference, however, we are able to identify one factor that places both male and female employees at risk of increased work-life conflict -- the culture of the organization in which the employee works. The following types of cultures are problematic (i.e. positively associated with role overload, work to family interference and family to work interference) for both men and women:
On the other hand, both men and women who work for an organization whose culture is supportive of work-life balance report lower levels of these forms of work-life conflict (i.e. supportive culture is negatively associated with role overload, work to family interference and family to work interference).
Job-related travel appears to be more problematic for women than men. This conclusion is supported by the following factors that are important predictors of role overload for women but not men: hours commuting to work per week, week nights away from home per month on business, and weekend nights away from home on business. For the men in the sample, role overload is a function of being a manager and engaging in work extension activities (i.e. taking work home to complete in the evening, engaging in SWAH).
Working for an organization that has supportive policies in place is predictive of reduced role overload for women but not men. It may be that women, more than men, need work-life policies to be in place before they can take positive action with respect to balance (i.e. such policies give their actions legitimacy and give them the "courage" to push back). This interpretation of the data is consistent with the fact that women (but not men) who feel that they cannot say no to overtime work are more likely to report high work to family interference.
For the men in the sample, family type has no strong association with either role overload or work to family interference. That is, men in traditional families and single men with dependent care responsibilities report the same levels of both of these forms of work-life conflict as dual-income fathers and men in dual-income families with elderly dependents. For the women in the study, on the other hand, family type is strongly associated with role overload and work to family interference. Women in non-traditional families (i.e. those with a stay-at-home husband) report lower levels of role overload and family to work interference but higher levels of work to family interference than other women. In other words, the women in this family type manifest work-life conflict patterns that are more typically reported by men.
While non-work demands predict family to work interference and caregiver strain for both men and women, the order of importance of the predictors suggests that there is a gender difference about the link between non-work demands and work-life conflict. For women, it is the amount of time that they have to spend looking after children and elderly dependents that is more problematic. Responsibility for these roles is of secondary importance with respect to the prediction of family to work interference. For men, on the other hand, having primary responsibility for child care appears to cause more of a problem than the amount of time spent in the role. This finding is consistent with the fact that the women in this sample spend more time providing child and elder care than men -- time that can be expected to increase the extent to which family to work interference affects this group of employees.
This finding suggests that multiple caregiver roles offer some form of protective function to women with respect to this form of work-life conflict.
The data indicate that, for the women in the sample, two forms of work-life conflict (family to work interference and caregiver strain) are substantively associated with the age of their children. Caregiver strain is positively associated with children's age, while family to work interference is negatively associated with children's age. These relationships were not significant for men. The following picture emerges from these data. As women age, the amount of care required by their children declines (as does family to work interference) as they too get older. At the same time, the amount of care required by the parents and in-laws of these women increases (as does caregiver strain) as they age. Women with adolescent children and parents who are younger and still independent report lower levels of both forms of work-life conflict. This result can be explained by the fact that, for women, biological limitations provide an upper limit on the age at which a woman can have children. These work-life findings indicate that employers and policymakers need to consider both child care and elder care roles when looking at conflict for women between work and life.
Work demands have a stronger association with caregiver strain for women than men. Examination of the data indicates that caregiver strain is positively associated with time per week performing SWAH and negatively associated with hours per week in work. It would appear from these data that women with this form of work-life conflict try to fit their work demands around their caregiving obligations by leaving the office early (fewer hours in work per week) and taking work home to complete (higher SWAH).
The data reviewed in this study leave little doubt that there is no "one size fits all solution" to the issue of work-life conflict and that different policies, practices and strategies will be needed to reduce each of the four components of work-life conflict. That being said, the data indicate that there are a number of strategies and approaches that the various stakeholders in this issue can use to reduce work-life conflict. Three sets of recommendations are offered in this report. The first set of recommendations relates to work demands and organizational culture. These recommendations have the broadest applicability (i.e. work demands and organizational culture are predictive of three out of four forms of work-life conflict, caregiver strain being the exception). This is followed by recommendations that should help employees cope with family to work interference and caregiver stain.
Recommendations That Deal with Work
Demands
To reduce role overload, work to family interference and family to
work interference, employers need to focus their efforts on making
work demands and work expectations realistic. Work demands, rather
than demands from outside work, are the key predictors of role
overload and work to family interference, the two most common forms
of work-life conflict in Canada at this time. While employers often
point with pride to the many "programs" available in
their organization to help employees meet family obligations, these
programs or options do not diminish the fact that most people
simply have more work to do than can be accomplished by one person
in a standard work week. Therefore, employers and governments need
to recognize that the issue of work-life conflict cannot be
addressed without dealing with the issue of workloads. Employers
can also help employees deal with heavy work demands by introducing
initiatives that increase an employee's sense of control. The
recommendations listed below are, we feel, critical with respect to
addressing the issue of demand and control:
To reduce role overload, work to family interference and family to work interference, employers need to deal with their organization's culture. Work-life policies are a necessary first step, but they are not sufficient in that they will not be implemented or used in a culture that is non-supportive of work-life issues. The findings from this study identified three different organizational cultures which are associated with increased work-life conflict: a culture of hours, a culture of work or family and a non-supportive culture (environment is non-supportive of balance). The importance of addressing the issue of organizational culture cannot be over-emphasized. Culture was the single strongest predictor of role overload, work to family interference and family to work interference for both men and women. A policy approach on its own will not fix what is wrong in many organizations. To address the issue of work-life conflict, employers need to create supportive work cultures. This means changing reward structures and accountability and measurement systems.
While the preceding recommendations will all act to make the work environment more supportive, we recommend that the following specific steps be taken by organizations that wish to focus their efforts on cultural change:
Unique predictors of family to work interference and caregiver strain include non-work demands and responsibilities associated with child care and elder care. To reduce these forms of work-life conflict will require a partnership among governments, employees, unions and employers. We would recommend the following actions to reduce these forms of work-life conflict:
Finally, the findings outlined in this study are somewhat disturbing in what they say about Canadian values. Why is caring for our seniors and our children causing so much strain? Why are Canadian men and women foregoing having families or reducing the number of children that they have? Has there been a change in values in Canada? Do Canadian organizations with cultures of work or family and hours reflect what is important to Canadians? Do such cultures give us a competitive advantage globally or are we hurting our chances of future success by focusing on short-term gains? Are we asking too much of families? Are we asking too much of employees? The data outlined in this study suggest that Canadians need to take a step back and reassess these issues. Canadian employees and employers "survived" the 1990s. Our ability to thrive in this millennium may well depend on how we move forward on the issues outlined in this report.
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1Throughout this report, the term "work"
refers to paid employment.