The survey – The Effect Of Long Hours On Family And Community Life – was conducted by researchers at the Centre for Labour Research at Adelaide University.

Overall the report finds that there is powerful evidence in a growing body of research that long hours are bad for individuals, couple relationships, children and the community fabric. Many of the effects of long hours and more intensive work patterns are privately experienced. They affect those who can least speak for themselves: our dependents. Children are revealed to be accepting of their parents hours of work though the research shows that stressed busy parents are impaired in their capacity to offer children what they want most: unstressed, unrushed parents with time on their hands, and the energy to give focussed attention to their children.

Women especially are affected by long hours in paid work – whether they work them or live with a partner who works them. The load of domestic work falls more to women, regardless of household patterns of paid work. However the intensification of paid work exacerbates tension about the inequitable sharing of domestic work, contributing to relationship tensions. Alongside this the increasing prevalence of long hour jobs in a wide range of workplaces makes the working lives of carers more problematic. If the only way to get ahead is to work long hours then equal opportunity for women retreats further.

After leading the world on working time reduction in the nineteenth century, Australia’s pattern of hours now most closely resembles that of the US and sits amongst those with the longest average working hours in the industrialised world. What is more, many want to work fewer hours, and find that their hours are not only longer, but more pressured, more demanding.

This literature reveals a tension between the demands of the market for Australian employees to work longer hours and the maintenance of the family – in all its diversity – and the community.

The whole report – The Effect Of Long Hours On Family And Community Life -can be read online or downloaded as a PDF document.