About ‘Reality Check: Work Life Balance’

Women in Australia are working now more than ever before while at the same time total fertility rates during the noughties increased back to 2.0 children per woman from 1.7 in 2001.

Women work harder overall than men, spending 78 hours/week on paid and unpaid work compared to 73 hours for men.

Women report 10% more severe work life conflict than men, and nearly twice the levels of ‘extreme’ and ‘substantial’ conflict.

The quality of life impact of work life stress was rated a little worse than having diabetes, and survey respondents were willing to pay on average $40 per week to eradicate the negative impacts from work life conflict.

47% of survey respondents had curtailed family desires due to other commitments; 16% delay having children and 18% did not have children, despite the desire to have them, sometimes as a consequence of not having time for relationships.

Risk factors for work life conflict:

• Being female
• Having young or many children
• Being well-educated
• Working long, unsocial or un-preferred hours
• Having multiple responsibilities
• Long commuting times
• Living in the ACT, Queensland or Victoria
• Tight finances/debt
• Health problems
• Inadequate support at home in domestic work or parenting
• Study deadlines
• Being from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background, and
• Geographic factors – such as traffic congestion

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