Families
suffer as job stress grows
Having
no children – or at least postponing childbirth – has become the way
that half
of all Canadian couples are choosing to cope with rising stress levels
brought
on largely by the pressures of their on-the-job workload, a new
federally-funded study has revealed.
“When
work and family becomes too much, we cut the family and just work,”
co-author
Dr. Linda Duxbury, a professor
at
“The
strategy works because their overload and balance is better. But people
are
making those decisions when their careers are going up, they’re doing
well and
they feel they can’t handle any more. Then they hit their late 40s and
there is
nothing they can do.”
The
study, released last week, is the fifth by Duxbury in a series of six commissioned by Health Canada
to examine how
Canadians are attempting to balance the often conflicting demands of
their work
and family lives.
About
25 per cent of the 33,000 people surveyed for the study said they coped
with
work overload by having fewer children, while 28 per cent said they
either
delayed having children or ruled them out completely. Among female
professionals and managers, fully two-thirds opted for fewer children
or none
at all.
The
study also found that a growing number of Canadians are facing mental
health
issues as they struggle with this lack of balance in their lives.
Over
half reported high levels of stress, one in three reported high levels
of
burnout and a depressed mood, and 60 per cent complained of “role
overload” –
what the Citizen described as “that frazzled feeling of never
having
enough time to get things done.” This is 11 per cent higher than a
decade
earlier.
Only
41 per cent of those surveyed stated they were satisfied with their
lives.
Duxbury
concluded as well that the so-called “family-friendly” policies many
companies
have adopted, such as unpaid leave, job sharing and flexible work
arrangements,
in her words, “aren’t worth a hill of beans.”
All
they have done, she said, is worsen the problem by shifting the burden
and the
financial sacrifice involved on to the workers. And those who take
advantage of
these policies have found they rarely advance in their jobs.
“Organizations have to actually stop putting the cost of balancing work
and
family onto the employee and start recognizing that for them to get and
keep
people, they have to smarten up,” Duxbury told the CBC.
Yet
attitudes appear to be shifting, at least among those between 30- and
42-years-old, the study suggests. Most of this up and coming
“Generation X” group, sandwiched between
young children and aging parents,
said they place family ahead of work. The percentage of working
Canadians who
feel this way has already doubled from 10 years ago.
According
to Duxbury’s study, one in four Canadians now work
at
least 50 hours per week, up from just one in 10 in 1991.
In fact, a separate
study by
