Work/Life Balance - Canadian Social Research Links

[links on this page are presented in reverse chronological order, with the most recent at the top of the page]

From []:

Changes in parental work time and earnings
October 2009

Full article:
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* (218K, 12 pages)
Abstract:
Between 1980 and 2005, family work time increased for most families with children, especially for families located at the bottom and in the middle of the earnings distribution. However, this increase occurred against a backdrop of a stronger increase in earnings for families at the top of the earnings distribution. This study finds that high earnings families earned more in 2005 than in 1980 for a given amount of family work time, likely because of higher wages.

Work–life balance of older workers
October 2009

Full article:

(209K, 12 pages)
Abstract:
Although it has received some attention in the Canadian literature, the issue of work–life balance of older workers remains largely understudied. This article addresses that gap using data from the 2005 General Social Survey. Overall, 14% of Canadian workers age 55 and over reported being dissatisfied with their work–life balance in 2005. The sources of conflict most frequently cited were too much time on the job and too little time for the family. Work–life balance dissatisfaction was associated with having a disability, providing elder care, working long hours, occupying a managerial position and being a woman. At the same time, having an employed partner, being self-employed and enjoying one’s job reduced the probability of work–life conflict. When the self-selection of older individuals out of employment was taken into account, the risk of work–life conflict did not vary with age.

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Source:

Family work patterns
August 2009
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* Full article: | (194K, 12 pages)
Women’s labour market participation has increased substantially over recent decades, creating challenges for families in balancing work–life responsibilities. The examination of family work patterns revealed significant differences in annual hours of work between families with and those without children.
Source:
August 25, 2009

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From the :

29 Apr 09
- Report from Statistics Canada on family work hours, patterns and statistics from .

22 Apr 09
- Report from the Centre for Families, Work and Well-Being, University of Guelph on how best to support employees facing diverse caregiving and personal responsibilities.

Employers, government must repair work-life balance, major study concludes
By Kathryn May
January 22, 2009
OTTAWA — Canada may not pull out of an economic slump unless governments and employers deal with the crushing workloads that are forcing a growing number of Canadians to delay or have fewer children, says a leading expert in balancing work and family life.
Source:

Report:

Work-Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium:
Key Findings and Recommendations From The 2001 National Work-Life Conflict Study
Report Six
December 2008 (PDF file date)
By Dr. Linda Duxbury and Dr. Chris Higgins
Complete report:

(2.6MB, 76 pages)

The 2001 National Work-Life Conflict Study and the reports produced from this research to date have given business and labour leaders, policy-makers and academics an objective 'big picture' view of this issue. This report, the last in the series of six reports, provides a summary of the key findings and recommendations coming from this research program.

Earlier reports in this series:

March 2002
- puts the series into context by describing the sample of employees who participated in the research and examining the various risk factors associated with work-life conflict.

October 2003
- makes the business case for change by looking at how high levels role overload, work to family interference, family to work interference, caregiver strain and spillover from work to family affect employers, employees and their families.

March 2004
- focuses on how work-life conflict affects Canada's health care system (i.e. quantifies the system demands associated with high work-life conflict and attempts to put some kind of dollar value on how much it costs Canada to treat the health consequences of such conflict).

September 2005
- identifies key risk factors for role overload, work interferes with family, family interferes with work and caregiver strain.

August 2008
- examines what employers, employees and their families can do to reduce work-life conflict.

Source:

[ The survey was commissioned by Health Canada
to examine how Canadians are coping with the demands of their work and family lives. ]

Recent releases from The :

(PDF - 21K, 2 pages)
News Release
OTTAWA, January 22, 2009
A Vanier Institute of the Family study released today predicts the effects of the current economic downturn will be felt around the kitchen table for years to come. In the 10th edition of its seminal study The Current State of Family Finances – 2008 Report, the Institute puts the current situation into context and finds that it has taken Canadian families a long time to recover from past recessions.

(PDF - 23K, 1 page)
- Recessions are very hard on families.
- Debt loads are in the danger zone.
- Spending and debt rise much faster than incomes.
- The wealth that went up has now come down.
- Unattached individuals aged 18-64 are the forgotten poor.
- Family Finances report celebrates its 10th anniversary

Complete report:

(PDF - 668K, 29 pages)
January 2009
by Roger Sauvé

[ - back to 1999 ]

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(PDF - 272K, 29 pages)
By Jacques Barrette, Ph.D.
January 15, 2009
The last two decades has seen a proliferation of research on the nature, scope and, implications of work/family conflict. This paper reviews much of this research and endeavours to (1) explain the fundamental causes of the work/family conflict, (2) demonstrate the impacts of this imbalance on families and organizations, (3) discuss the challenges families face, and (4) present possible strategies to improve the situation.

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(PDF - 272K, 29 pages)
By Roger Sauvé
January 15, 2009
Families are changing and so are the organizations for which they work. Families need and want the work that employers provide and employers need the workers to produce goods and services for sale and distribution. It is a two-way street. This report highlights the dynamic relationship between these two entities and examines whether or not Canadians are achieving an acceptable balance between family life and work life. The result seems to be an uneasy balance.

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(PDF - 83K, 1 page)
January 15, 2009
This issue of Fascinating Families is based on the above report, Family Life and Work Life: An Uneasy Balance

<=== links to 13 issues back to October 2007
Fascinating Families is a web feature that builds on VIF’s expertise in monitoring family trends and in making complex statistics accessible and understandable to a wide audience. Published on the 15th of each month, Fascinating Families highlights timely, family-related facts and uses a “family lens” to frame a brief discussion of the implications for families in Canada.

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Source:

The Vanier Institute of the Family, established in 1965 under the patronage of Their Excellencies Governor-General Georges P. Vanier and Madame Pauline Vanier, is a national, charitable organization dedicated to promoting the well-being of Canadian families. It is governed by a volunteer board with regional representation from across Canada.

March 18, 2008
Fewer full-time Canadian workers are putting in long hours on the job, but the decline has occurred mostly among men and older workers, according to a new study. The study, published today in Perspectives on Labour and Income, showed that in 2006, full-time workers put in 40.8 hours on the job on average, down from 41.5 hours in 1997.
[ ]
Source: (incl. links to earlier issues]
[]:

February 21, 2008

Married women in at least some Canadian families were able to adjust to their husband's layoff by increasing their own employment income during the 1990s, a new study suggests.The study, published today in the Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, assessed whether the earnings of wives and teenagers increased in response to layoffs experienced by husbands between 1987 and 2001.

(PDF file - 438K, 37 pages)
Source:

[]

New from the Organisation for :

News Release
November 29, 2007
Getting family-friendly policies right will help reduce poverty, promote child development, enhance equity between men and women and stem the fall in birth-rates, according to a new OECD report. Babies and Bosses, Reconciling Work and Family Life compares the different approaches that the 30 OECD countries take to help parents balance their work and family commitments.

The Babies and Bosses reviews of work and family reconciliation analysed policies and family outcomes in Australia, Denmark and the Netherlands (OECD, 2002); Austria, Ireland and Japan (OECD, 2003); New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland (OECD, 2004); and Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (OECD, 2005). This report, the last in the series, synthesises these findings and extends the scope to include other OECD countries. Based on OECD-wide indicators, it examines tax/benefit policies, parental leave systems, child and out-of-school-hours care support, and workplace practices that help determine parental labour market outcomes and family formation across the OECD.

Finding a suitable work/family life balance is a challenge that all parents face. Many parents and children in Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom are happy with their existing work and care outcomes. However, many others feel seriously constrained in one way or another, and their personal well-being suffers as a consequence.

(Excel format) from Babies and Bosses (Vol. 4): Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom

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This book is part of the Babies and Bosses series, consisting of comparative studies of work and family reconciliation policies.
To get a more comprehensive picture of reconciliation policies, you can consult the first three volumes:
- (volume 1) , which was published in 2002
- (volume 2), which was published in 2003
- (volume 3), which was released in 2004

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- click the link above for info about the activities listed below (incl. links to many key documents), or click a link below
* (employment-oriented)
* (ongoing)
*
* (ongoing)
*
*

Source:

(PDF file - 3.4MB, 212 pages)
By Dr. Chris Higgins, Dr. Linda Duxbury and Sean Lyons
*October 2007
HMMM - this link is dead (Nov. 11/07 ) ===> Try going to to see if you can access the report from there

Summary

(PDF file - 345K, 30 page)

Source:

* Hey, Health Canada --- how about dating your reports???
I couldn't find a single date in this entire 212-page report.
According to the Properties menu of the PDF file, this report was produced in either September or October 2007.

This is the fifth report in a series of six.

:
* Report One: The 2001 National Work–Life Conflict Study
* Report Two: Work–Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium: A Status Report
* Report Three: Exploring the Link between Work–Life Conflict and the Use of Canada’s Health Care System
* Report Four: Who Is at Risk? Predictors of High Work–Life Conflict
* Report Five: Reducing Work–Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn’t?
Yet to come:
* Report Six : Work–Life Conflict in Canada in the New Millennium: Key Findings and Recommendations from the 2001 National Work–Life Conflict Study
Source:

Barbara Pocock
Posted
This paper from the 2007 Australian Social Policy Conference examines the current situation of Australians as they put together their work and larger lives, under a particular policy regime. Pocock argues that an ethic of care needs to accompany Australia's well developed ethic of work, and that new arrangements are necessary to govern their simultaneous realisation.
Source:

Jennifer Baxter, Matthew Gray, Michael Alexander, Lyndall Strazdins and Michael Bittman
Posted
This paper examines how the use of child care, the time parents spend with children, and parental wellbeing relate to parental employment.
Source:
(Australia)

Barbara Pocock, Natalie Skinner and Philippa Williams
Posted
Work affects most working Australians beyond the workplace. Over half employees surveyed find that work sometimes, often or almost always affects their activities beyond the workplace (52.6% of the total) and even more find it regularly keeps them from spending the amount of time they would like with family or friends (60.7%).
Source:

What's New from []:

May 15, 2007

One out of every three Canadians identifies themselves as a workaholic, and these individuals are much more likely to be dissatisfied with the balance between their work and family time than other workers, a new study has found. The study, published today in the May online edition of Canadian Social Trends, used data from the 2005 General Social Survey (GSS) to examine whether quality of life is different for workers who describe themselves as workaholics than for those who do not self-identify as workaholics.

Complete study:

Time escapes me: Workaholics and time perception
By Leslie-Anne Keown

(75K, 5 pages)

February 13, 2007

Spending more time at work and less time with the family? You're not alone, according to a new study that examines the time Canadian workers spend with family members during a typical workday. The study, published today in Canadian Social Trends, found that on average workers spent 45 minutes less with their family during workdays in 2005 than they did two decades earlier. Based on a 260-day work year, that amounts to 195 hours less, or the equivalent of about five 40-hour work weeks.

Complete study:

by Martin Turcotte
This study examines the time workers spend with family members during a typical workday. Using data from four different cycles of the General Social Survey on time use, it documents the evolution of the average time spent with family between 1986 and 2005. In particular, it accounts for factors that can contribute to an understanding of these changes.

(105K, 10 pages)

December 2006
Andrew Heisz and Sébastien LaRochelle-Côté
Discussions related to work hours are typically driven by cross-sectional studies. Much less is known about the longitudinal perspective and the persistence of long hours or periods of underemployment. The annual hours of employees are examined over a five-year period to determine what proportion experience variable work years and how their well-being is affected.
(409K, 20 pages) - this link opens a PDF file containing both articles above

Source:

(PDF file - 365K, 61 pages)
November 17, 2006
This paper exploits the unique strengths of the tax-based Longitudinal Administrative Database to measure the flows of Canadians to other countries and the patterns of return over the period from 1982 to 2003.
(HTML)

Source:

- links to 100+ research papers going back to 1994

What's New from the :

(PDF file - 526K, 42 pages)
September 2006
The increase in two earner households has changed the structure of the labour market, presenting employees, government and firms with new challenges. These changes have spurred an increasing interest in
new workplace practices and policies that may respond to the requirements of the New Economy. Research in the area covers a variety of fields in social sciences and has mainly focused on the availability of benefits to workers with families. However, a natural question that has only received passing attention is to what extent these benefits are being used by families.
(PDF file - 35K, 2 pages)

(144K, 28 pages)
Contents:
* Introduction
* Defining and Framing Work-Life Balance
*Demographic and Labour Market Trends
* Work Hours, Constraints on Choice and the Life Cycle
* Work-Life Balance in the Context of Labour Policy
* Conclusion

(PDF file - 218K, 42 pages)
May 2006
Table of Contents:
* Introduction
* Setting the Stage: The Changing Labour Market and Social Context for Families with Young Children,
* A Short History of Maternity and Parental Benefits Policy in Canada
* Sample Benefit Calculations for Five Historical Periods and the Quebec Program
* Statistical Evidence on Benefit Receipt
* What Are the Goals of the Federal Program and How Well Are They Being Achieved?
* Where to From Here? Discussion and Recommendations

Take Back Your Time is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. October 24th Is Take Back Your Time Day.
- incl. links to: Home | Join Our E-Mail List | Handbook | Contact | News & Events | Media About TBYT Day | Four Windows Of Time | Public Policy Agenda | Support Time Day

, (PDF file - 159K, 32 pages) J. Levin-Epstein, , Washington, July (2006).
Source:
- Paris
- CERC[version française]

30-Jun-06
-Report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development recommends “free early education for all three and four year-olds.”

Report from the Institute for Research on Public Policy considers “whether and how problems of work-life balance run across the whole spectrum of the working population.”

Source:
- University of Toronto

From The Scout Report, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (U.S.):

Study finds that full-time stay-at-homes would make over $130,000

May 3, 2006
NEW YORK - A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday.

What a life: Working 9 to 5?and 6 to midnight..

What is Mom's Job Worth?

Mommy Talk: Misconceptions about Working Moms

Digital History: Mothers and Fathers in America: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

Working Moms Refuge

Over the past hundred years, a number of economic and social transformations have resulted in dramatic changes to the American family structure. While debates about this complex topic rages on, one thing is certain: Stay-at-home moms do a great deal of work, and the work encompasses everything from managing household finances to counseling children (and sometimes even their own spouse). This week, the staff at Waltham-based Salary.com released an intriguing study that shows that a full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if she were paid for all the diverse tasks she performs. This amount is similar to the annual wage earned by an ad executive or judge. In order to tabulate these predicted earnings, the survey administrators calculated the earning power of the jobs that 'most closely comprise a mother's role?. Of course, this included such professions as janitor, van driver, psychologists, day-care teacher, as well as several others. Some of the prevailing sentiment among mothers upon hearing about the study can be summed up best by the forthright remarks made by Dr. Laura Riley, a mother of two: "There is no price tag-I'm priceless."

The first link [above] leads to coverage of this story from MSNBC.com, complete with a video commentary by newscaster, Lisa Daniels. The second link will take users to a piece from this Wednesday?s Boston Herald that offers additional insight into the study. The third link takes users to the special page on the wages of stay-at-homes created by Salary.com. The fourth link whisks users away to a very interesting commentary by Marci Laehr (a working mom) on the debates about whether or not to stay-at home full-time after the birth of a child. Visitors can also chime in with their own opinions here, if they so desire. The fifth link leads to a fine essay offered by Professor Steven Mintz of the University of Utah on the changing roles of mothers and fathers in America over the past few hundred years. The final link, appropriately enough, leads to a bit of an electronic refuge for working moms. Here users will find tips for single moms seeking to maintain some balance between their careers and their family life.

The six links and the review above are from ,
Copyright Internet Scout Project . /

Work-Life Balance

L'équilibre entre le travail et la vie personnelle

Toronto