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WORK-LIFE ISSUES IN AUSTRALIA: WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Natalie Skinner
Barbara Pocock
Philippa Williams
Centre for Work + Life, Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies
University of South Australia
22nd AIRAANZ Conference, 6 – 8 Feb 2008, Melbourne
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP0776732)
UniSA partnership with the Western Australian State Health Advisory Committee on Work Life Balance and SafeWork SA, Government of South Australia.
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OVERVIEW
Why are work-life issues important?
Overview of AWALI
Research questions: Does self-employment reduce work-life conflict?
Who is most at risk of w-l conflict?
Who wants to downshift their work hours?
Implications
Future plans3
WHY ARE WORK-LIFE ISSUES IMPORTANT?
Health economics (Higgins et al 2004) 2001, Canada, health costs High work-family spillover: C$2.8 billion
Mental and physical health impairments (for self & family functioning)
Organisational costs Turnover intention, performance effectiveness
Reduced marital and life satisfaction
(Kossek & Ozeki 1999; Allen et al. 2000) 4
AWALI
Australian Work and Life Index
National survey of work–life outcomes
Repeated annually from March 2007
CATI interviews conducted by Newspoll
1435 randomly selected working Australians
29 Qs + 10 demographic Qs (Newspoll)5
EXISTING DATA SOURCES
Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (HILDA), Melbourne University
‘Growing up in Australia’ Longitudinal Study of Australia Children (LSAC), Australian Institute of Family Studies
Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA), ANU
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Overview of AWALI 2007 sample characteristics (%)
Men Women All ABS labour force survey1
All 57.3 42.7 100 54.9 (male)
Type of employment
Employee 84.3 91.1 87.5 81.2
Self-employed 15.7 8.1 12.5 18.8
Work status
Full-time (35+ hours per week)
84.2 54.7 71.6 71.9
Part-time (< 35 hours per week)
15.8 45.3 28.4 28.1
Trade union membership 24.1 26.3 25.0 20.3
Note. Data weighted by Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on age, highest level of schooling completed, sex and area. 1ABS Cat. No. 6310.0 November 2006 and Cat. No. 6202.0 May 2007. ABS data for states includes 2.2% from the Northern Territory, and includes 15–24 year olds in first age group.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What makes a difference to work-life interaction?
Selection of AWALI findings:
Does self-employment reduce work-life conflict?
Who is most at risk of conflict?
Who wants to downshift their work hours?
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MEASURES
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1. Work interferes with responsibilities or activities outside of work
2. Work restricts time with family or friends
1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = almost always
3. How many hours per week do you usually spend in paid work, including any paid or unpaid overtime?
4. If you could choose the number of hours you work each week, and taking into account how it would affect your income, how many hours would you choose to work?
o 1 hour or more difference = poor fit
SELF EMPLOYMENT
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Work often / almost always interferes with activities outside work
Employees Self-employed
All 19.8 22.1
Have children 24.9 21.1
No children 16.3 22.6
Men 22.7 18.8
Women 16.2 30.6*
Work often / almost always interferes with enough time with family or friends
Employees Self-employed
All 24.3 27.3
Have children 31.9 35.3
No children 19.0 22.2
Men 27.3 28.7
Women 20.7 22.9*
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Prefer fewer work hours
Employees Self-employed
All 43.5 44.9
Have children 45.7 47.8
No children 41.8 42.9
Men 44.5 47.5
Women 42.2 38.6*
WHICH OCCUPATIONS ARE AT RISK OF W-L CONFLICT?
Occupation:
Work often/almost always restrict personal/family time 33.3% managers 23.5% professionals 27.1% technical & trades workers 32.6% community & personal service workers
Prefer fewer hours 59.2% managers 50.0% professionals 41.5% technical & trades workers 34.1% community & personal service workers
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LIFE CYCLE STAGE & GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION
25 – 54 years: highest risk Especially parents 1/5th to ¼ report frequent (often/almost always) conflict
Geographic location: city vs rural/regional 23.1% city workers report frequent time restrictions; 26.7%
rural/regional workers 45.8% city workers prefer fewer hours; 38.6% rural/regional
workers
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WHO WANTS TO DOWNSHIFT TO PART-TIME?
Full-time women (32.5%), very few men (13.5%)
Very little difference based on parenthood 13.7% full-time parents (women 16.3%; men 12%) 15.0% full-time workers without children
Occupation: 18.5 % professionals (women 22.4%; men 15.5%) 11.4 % all other occupations (women 14.7%; men 8.7%).
Work-life conflict Workers dissatisfied with WLB: 21.1% desire downshift
(women 26.6%; men 18.9%) Workers satisfied with WLB: 12.1% desire downshift
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STUDY LIMITATIONS
Small sample sizes some groups: Self-employed women Men working part-time
Absence of questions on unsocial working times
Reliance on short & single-item measures CATI costs
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POLICY AND PRACTICE
Self-employment is not the “silver bullet” of negative work-life spill-over
Neither is part-time work Job quality: especially workload
Life-cycle approach to policy and practices (cf WLH project) “One-size-fits-all” approach not appropriate Recognition of life stages & differing pressures/needs Work, Life & Health project
Other occupations besides managers & professionals are at risk of work-life conflict
Technical & trades; community & personal service workers Work schedules, shift work, hours, workloads (time pressure, client load)?
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FUTURE PLANS
Annual data collection Next 3 years funded through ARC Linkage Project ‘Work/Life
Balance, Well-Being and Health: Theory, Practice and Policy’
Modification to items Add item(s): eg unsociable work hours
Survey of WA health workforce (ARC Linkage Project)
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FURTHER INFORMATION
Pocock B, Williams, P & Skinner N 2007, ‘The Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI): Concepts, Methodology & Rationale’, Centre for Work + Life Discussion Paper 1/07, May 2007.
Pocock B, Williams, P & Skinner N 2007, ‘Work Life and Time: The Australian Work and Life Index 2007’, Centre for Work + Life Discussion Paper 1/07, May 2007.
http://www.unisa.edu.au/hawkeinstitute/cwl/publications.asp
