Work-Family Balancing and Working Time: What Measures are Available to Canadian Workers and What Measures should Employers Develop?

This article examines work-family balance. Data from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) was used to assess the overall situation of this phenomenon in Canada. Representative statistical data was used to determine to what extent employers have taken the work-family challenge into account. Our data indicate that the progress observed regarding the social debate on work-family balance has not necessarily translated into a marked improvement in facilitating conditions in workplaces and that there have even been setbacks. Indeed, the number of workdays per week has slightly increased, reaching almost 5 days on average for men and 4.6 days for women in 2002. Moreover, a significant percentage of the Canadian workforce is on flexible work schedules or rotating shifts, which were identified as a source of difficulty for work-family balance. On the other hand, a great proportion of Canadian workers report that they work a number of hours at home, which may foster balance but can also be a source of encroachment on private life. The WES data show that people work at home because of work demands and not for reasons of work-family balance. In brief, work spills over into their personal lives. Moreover, although the most pressing desire of Canadian parents with children under the age of 3 is that employers offer help with daycare and on-site childcare services, barely more than one-quarter of Canadian workers report that their employers offered childcare services in 2002. Also, employers offer help with eldercare services to only one-tenth of Canadian workers. As regards the impact of the number of children, its effect on work time, schedules and preferences related to work time is ambiguous. As regards interest in work time reduction, the effect is also ambiguous but workers with one child or two children expressed a slightly greater desire to reduce their work hours. On the other hand, a link was found between the number of children and the desire to work extra hours since the more children workers have, the less they want to work extra hours.