Introduction

At the heart of work/family/work life issues is a paradox, the essential competition between the demands of business to be productive and efficient in the market place and the needs of family and personal life. As Rapoport and Bailyn (1996) concluded,The struggle to have both a good family life (or personal life) and a good career arises from a dominant societal image of the ideal worker as "career-primary", the person who is able and willing to put work first and for whom work time is infinitely expandable.'

Work and family conflicts and tensions can occur as the result of role overload or role interference when there is not enough time or energy to meet the commitments of multiple roles or the expectations and demands if the two roles conflict (Duxbury and Higgins, 1994). For workers with family responsibilities, time - for children, with partners, for elderly parents, for household chores, for personal leisure and for meeting work demands - appears to be the major juggernaut of those who are combining paid work with family responsibilities.

Although work and family studies reveal that balancing these two roles can be stressful for many families, research consistently finds that between 25 and 40 per cent of respondents indicate that their job interferes with family life to some extent (Wolcott and Glezer,1995, Morehead, Steele, Alexander, Stephen and Duffin, 1997, Galinsky, Bond and Swanberg, 1998).

The Australian Family Life Course Study (AFLCS)

To gain an understanding of the reciprocal impacts of employment on family and personal life and family on work life, respondents in the AFLCS, a national longitudinal telephone survey conducted by the AIFS in late 1996 (n=2688), were asked a number of questions about the balance between their work and family life. This paper examines the extent to which work life interferes with home life and how home life interferes with work and for those who were partnered, how partner's work life interferes with work. The paper addresses how factors to do with the working environment and individual and family circumstances influence these reciprocal effects.

Competing Demands: From Work to Home and Home to Work

AFLCS respondents who were in the labour force were asked 'Do you find that your work life interferes with your home life. Significantly more men (40 per cent) than women (28 per cent), whether employees or self-employed, felt that work interfered with home life. Those with partner's were also asked whether partner's work interferes with home life. In contrast to their own work situation women (35 per cent) are more likely than men (28 per cent) to say that their partner's work added to family tension. Surprisingly few men or women (10 per cent) claimed that home life interfered with work.

Figure 1 : Extent Work and Home Life Interfere With Each Other

Work to Home Interference across the Life Course

The impact of work life on family and personal lives will vary across the ages and stages of the life course. Work tended to interfere the most with home life for those in the age ranges where child rearing and job and career demands are at a peak.

Figure 2: Age x Work Interference with Home Life

For men, around 44 per cent aged 30-49 years felt work interfered with home life. While for women, around 30 per cent of women under age 30 as well as aged 30-49 felt this way, accounting for the fact that women under 30 more than men are likely to begin child bearing. Older women aged 50-60 plus and men aged 60 or over (20 per cent) were least likely to feel this strain although men aged 50-59 (35 per cent) were still feeling the effect of work demands on home life.

Work Environment

Recent research highlights the increased levels of work intensity, particularly longer working hours (Morehead et al, 1997, WFD, 1998). In the AFLCS, 66 per cent of men and 23 per cent of women were working more than 41 hours per week. As anticipated AFLCS data confirmed that hours of work, particularly long working hours significantly affected how work affected home life.

Figure Three: Work Interference With Home Life x Hours Worked

Half of all employed men and 46 per cent of employed women who worked 41 or more hours felt work interfered with home life compared to less than one-quarter (22 per cent) of women and the small proportion of men who worked less than 30 hours a week.

Level of control over working hours was examined and found not to be associated with the degree to which work interfered with home life for both men and women .

Preferred Work hours

AFLCS collected information on preferred working hours and the
hours people preferred to work were clearly related to how men and women felt about the impact of work on home life. Around 60 per cent of men and women who indicated that they preferred to work less hours than they currently worked said work interfered with home life compared to around 25 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women who were content with the hours they worked.

Figure 4: Work Interference with Home Life by Preferred Working Hours

Occupational Status

Although higher status occupation tend to have greater time flexibility and control , they also tend to work longer hours and under pressure (Morehead et al 1997). In AFLCS men and women in white collar occupations report significantly higher levels of work interference in home life (45 per cent and 38 per cent respectively) than lower white collar (men 36 per cent, women 22 per cent) or blue collar workers (men 34 per cent and 27 per cent).

Families and Work Interference With Home LIfe

Being in a relationship is significantly related to men feeling work interferes with home life, 44 per cent of partnered men compared to 30 per cent of those not in relationship. No significant differences were found for women.

In couples where both partners are employed, either partner's work schedules and conditions may affect family life. A good day at work can 'spillover' into cheerfulness at home while a harassed day may reduce one's energy and tolerance for handling everyday household tasks and hassles as well as limiting the patience to be interested and involved with other family members ( Crouter, 1994, Lambert, 1990).

Figure 5 : Couples and Work Interference With Home Life

Looking at couples, for men whether their partner worked full or part-time or not at all did not effect how their own work interfered with home life. Around 44 per cent of men felt this strain. When it came to their partner's work status causing concern, there were differences. Men whose wives worked full-time were most likely to say that their partner's work interfered with home life ( 33 per cent ) compared with those whose wives worked part-time (22 per cent).

For partnered women, working full-time made the difference. Women who worked full-time (35 per cent) felt that their own work interfered with home life compared to 19 per cent of women who worked part-time.

Around 30 per cent of women in couples where both worked full-time felt their partner's work affected home life, paradoxically, 41 per cent of women who worked part-time also felt this way.

Men more than women in dual working couples feel their own work interferes with home life since they tend to work longer hours per week and have less time for family and social life.

Wives who worked part-time or not at all take on more child care and household activities thus relieving their partners from some of these demands, thus men may have less pressure to leave work earlier or to work longer hours. On the other hand, because they work part-time and tend to assume more household tasks, these women may wish for more sharing of household tasks, child care and social life from husbands who were putting in long hours at work.

The Presence of Children

The presence of children can complicate the juggling process of work and family demands. In addition to the organisation of child care and after school activities, children become ill and parental time and energy are needed for just ordinary daily nurturing and support.

The age of the youngest child had little impact on the degree to which work interfered with home life for mothers, but for fathers younger children seemed to have a greater impact. Fathers who worked long hours, not surprisingly, were most likely to feel that work interfered with home life, particularly those with young children. It must be borne in mind that it is women who tend to adjust their working hours or leave the workforce if work is interfering with home life during the childbearing years.

Figure 6: The Presence of Children and Work Interference With Home Life

Couples with Children under 18 years

Overall, 47 per cent of fathers and 41 per cent of full-time working mothers in couples with children under age 18 indicated that their work interfered with home life. Mothers who worked part-time were significantly less likely to feel that work interfered with home life (21 per cent). Of course the reason many women work part-time is to achieve a better balance between work and family responsibilities.

Around one-third of couple fathers (31 per cent) and mothers (38 per cent) who worked full-time compared with 43 per cent of mothers working part time also felt that their partner's work interfered with home life. Again although working part-time improves the balance of work and home for mothers, it may not increase the time fathers who work long hours have for home life.

Lone Mothers

For lone mothers the potential for work to interfere with family life may be greater than in couples since all responsibilities fall on the one parent, overall 39 per cent of lone mothers with children under 18 years found work interfering with home life. Lone mothers working full time (50 per cent) , similar to mothers in two parent families, are more likely to experience work interference in family life than those working part time (27 per cent).

From Home to Work

Frone, Russell and Barnes (1996) commenting on the reciprocal influences of work and family conflict concluded 'It appears that employees are better at managing the potentially disrupting influence of their family demands on work life than they are at managing the potentially disrupting influence of their work-related demands on home life'.

Confirming this conclusion, only 10 per cent of employed men and women in the AFLCS believed that home interfered with work. There were no significant differences by age and life stage.

Irrespective of ages of children who were living at home, only 11 per cent of men, 13 per cent of women working full-time and 10 per cent of women working part-time said that home life interfered with work.
For lone mothers, working full or part time 10 per cent report similar feelings.

For men and women in a couple relationship, whether their partners worked full or part-time or not at all appeared to make no difference in their perceptions of whether home life interfered with work.

In terms of reciprocal effects, it was found that among the 40 per cent of all men who found working interfered with home life, 1 in 5 found home life interfering with their work situation. Among partnered men who are experiencing work interfering with family life, half report some interference from their partner's work on their home life.

For the 28 per cent of women who experienced work interfering with home life, 1 in 5 agreed that home was interfering with work life, and for those who were partnered and were experiencing work interfering with home life 59 per cent found their partner's work interfering with their home life.

Similar findings were reported in the US workforce study (Galinsky, Bond and Swanberg, 1998). Only 17 per cent of employees said that their family or personal life sometimes or often kept them from doing as good a job at work as they could. A higher proportion of employees felt that family or personal life sometimes or often drained them of the energy needed to do their job (28 per cent) kept them from concentrating on their job (33 per cent).

Achieving a Balance

Finding the time and energy for both work, family and personal life is the Holy Grail for most workers. AFLCS examined aspects of how time constraints affected their lives.

Time for Self, Family and Friends

When all respondents who were in the labour force were asked whether the amount of time they had with family was enough, 51 per cent of men and 44 per cent of women working full-time replied there was not enough time. Although working part-time makes a difference, over a third (36 per cent) of women working part-time still said there was not enough time with family.

Figure 7 : Time for Self, Family and Friends X Full- time and Part- time Work

When it came to time for oneself, women working full-time felt they had the least amount of time (53 per cent) compared to women working part time (47 per cent) and men (41 per cent). Women with children who worked full-time were most likely to feel the lack of time for themselves (63 per cent).

Overall around 40 per cent of all men and women said they did not have enough time for friends. It is interesting that working part-time for women made no difference.

Across the life course, age did not significantly affect how men and women felt about having enough time for family and friends.

Feelings of time pressures are, not surprisingly, associated with feelings that work interfered with home life. Around forty per cent of women and between 50 and 60 per cent of men who report having insufficient time for themselves, their families or friends also found work affected home life.

Past research (Duxbury and Higgins, 1994, Hochschild, 1989, Gutek, Searle and Klepa, 1991) suggests that women more than men tend to feel that family demands come before personal needs and to feel more conflict or guilt if their work role impinges on family time. Bittman and Pixley (1997) surprisingly conclude from time use surveys that Australian parents, both male and female, have increased the amount of time they spend with their children. Between 1987-1992 women have spent an additional 1 hour and 24 minutes per week and men an extra 2 hours per week in child care.

Feeling Stressed and Pressured

Recent research highlights the increased levels of stress due to added pressures in the work place and perceptions that it has become more difficult to balance work and family lives. In addition to the intensification of work, feelings of insecurity about one's job as redundancies become more commonplace can add to a sense that one has to devote even more time to the workplace to be seen to be a committed employee. For the self employed, increased competition means even longer hours are seen to be necessary to service clients and customers (Walker, 1998).

To obtain some idea of work and family pressures in their lives, AFLCS respondents in the workforce were asked whether they felt too rushed to do the things they had to do and how often they felt tired and run down.

Around 49 per cent of all employed men and 59 per cent of women often felt too rushed. Men aged 30-60 years and women aged 30-50 were more affected. Similarly 43 per cent of men and 53 per cent of women often felt tired and run down but age was not a factor. Feeling rushed and tired were positively correlated with work interfering with home life for both working men and women.

Figure 8 and Figure 9: How Feeling Rushed and Tired Relate to Work Interfering With Home Life

These findings are consistent with recent overseas research. Half of full time workers in a British survey (WFD, 1998) were concerned about having too little time with their families and 25 per cent did not believe it was possible to have a good family life and get ahead in their current job. Those most concerned about too little time with family were professionals (67 per cent) , those working in large companies (56 per cent) and those with small children (61 per cent). Marginally more men than women felt this way. Around 27 per cent of US employees surveyed felt they often did not have enough time for their family or other important people in their lives. or for themselves (Galinsky, Bond and Swanberg, 1998).

Caring and Stress

The reciprocal effects of work and family life are ongoing across the lifecourse. While time and energy for children may dominate the earlier stages of the life course, caring for the elderly and partners as they age come to the fore in the later stages of working life.

Studies of employed caregivers of the elderly, ill and disabled conclude that combining paid work with caring could be both stressful and enhancing. Positive aspects of work on caring obligations include increased financial resources and a better relationship with the care recipient because of the stimulation and satisfaction at work. Reduced time or energy for caregiving and caregiver stress are major negative aspects of combining roles (Sharlach, 1994, Caring Costs Alliance, 1996, Phillips, 1995, Moen, Robison, Dempster-McClain, 1996,Murphy, Schofield, Nankervis, Bloch, Herrman and Singh,1997).

In the AFLCS, 13 per cent of employed respondents identified themselves as main caregivers to the elderly, ill and disabled. For employed caregivers, two-thirds of whom were aged 30-50 years, the reciprocal impacts of work on family life were similar to workers without main caring responsibilities and to parents in ordinary child rearing stage of life.

While being a main carer was not strongly associated with work to home interference, where either the respondent or their partner had health problems this was significantly related to work being seen to impact on home life, for both men and women.

Satisfaction from Family Life

The social, emotional and cultural environment at work has been shown to affect family dynamics. Hochschild (1997) reports that many fathers and particularly mothers of young children found their workplace more satisfying than their home environment. She describes workplaces where sympathetic supervisors, feelings of team spirit and awards for work well done were in contrast to homes where children are fractious, housework is unending and demands on time and energy seem overwhelming, especially when husbands are perceived as not doing their share.

She makes the critical point that higher expectations of family relationships and parenting today, both material and psychological, complex family structures and an environment of diminishing community support for parents and family life are the aetiology of these attitudes. She firmly believes that family relationships are at risk when time at work becomes dominant whether by choice or coercion.

When it comes to feelings about family life and work life, somewhat in contrast to Hochschild's American employees, employed Australian parents, appear to gain much satisfaction from family life.

Around 80 per cent of all employed men and women in the AFLCS said that when things were not going well at work, they generally gained satisfaction from their home life. Results were the same for mothers and fathers of children under 18, regardless of their age.

On the other hand, when things were not going well at home, only 40 per cent of men said they gained satisfaction from their work. Interestingly however, 60 per cent of employed women both full and part-time generally found satisfaction in work even when things were not going well at home, particulary for women in higher status jobs.

Figure 10: Satisfaction From Home and Work

Men in blue collar positions were less likely to say home life compensated for less satisfaction from work. While a work identity has defined most men's concepts of self, working class men have, particularly, been seen to be less involved in some of the practical and emotional aspects of family life and, therefore, may find it less easy to substitute satisfactions from one sphere to the other ( Probert, 1996). Generally lower incomes means that, for women particularly, there is less ability to ease some of the domestic and childcare tasks at home which contribute to family tensions.

AFLCS data indicates that workers who find that work is interfering with home life have significantly lower levels of work satisfaction (F 26.99 , p .0000) and general life satisfaction (F14.33, p .0000). Also respondents who report that home life is interfering with work life have significantly lower levels of work satisfaction (F 6.69 , p .001) and general life satisfaction (F23.18, p .0000). Lower levels of job performance and work satisfaction have been found in other studies where work demands leave insufficient time and energy for family life (Galinsky, Bond and Swanberg, 1997, Morehead et. al., 1997).

Reciprocal Impacts of Work and Family Life: Explanatory Factors

Main Predictors of work interfering with home life and Home life interfering with work

Throughout the paper we have examined factors related to the work environment, and individual and family characteristics, including time pressures and caring responsibilities that have been found to be related to work impacting on home life and vice versa.

In order to identify the main predictors of both work interfering with home life and home life interfering with work, the multivariate technique of discriminant function analysis was used . Discriminant function analysis is a convenient technique for seeing the associations between a large set of independent variables and the dependent variable being studied. It provides information on which independent variables in a model best predict into which group a respondent will fall on a given dependent variable.

The two dependent variable used in the models presented below are:-

'Do you find you work life interferes with your home life?' - this three category variable has been recoded into a dichotomous variable (yes = 1, somewhat,no=0), and

'Do you find that home life interferes with work?' has been recoded (yes =1, somewhat, no=0). The independent variables included in the two models presented below included:-

Work environment: Working hours, preferred working hours, work satisfaction, occupation level.

Individual and Family Factors: Age, education level, being partnered, presence of children, general life satisfaction, home life interferes with work or work interferes with home life depending on dependent variable in model) with work, not enough time for self, not enough time for partner, feeling tired and run down, feeling too rushed to do the things you have to do.

Looking first at the predictors of work interfering with home life for women in the workforce (n=877). The final model correctly predicted 77 per cent of cases, and the canonical correlation was .55.

The main predictors for women of work interfering with home life , ranked in order of importance were:-

• Prefer to work less hours-
  
• Home interferes with work life-
  
• Lower work satisfaction-
  
• Not enough time for self-
  
• Not enough time for family-
  
• Feeling tired and run down-
  
• Having higher education-
  
• Working longer hours
  

Main predictors for men of work interfering with home life were:-

• prefer to work less hours-
  
• home interferes with work-
  
• not enough time for family-
  
• not enough time for self-
  
• working longer hours-
  
• higher education-
  
• lower work satisfaction-
  
• being married or cohabiting
  

Main predictors of home life interfering with work for women (n=877) were:-

• Work interfering with home life-
  
• Having lower life satisfaction-
  
• Having children at home
  

Main predictors of home life interfering with work for men were:-

• Lower life satisfaction-
  
• prefer to work less hours-
  
• work interfering with home life
  

Main predictors for partnered women with children < 18 years of work interfering with home life: (79% cases correctly predicted)-

• prefer to work less hours-
  
• partner's work interferes with home life-
  
• Feel tired and run down

Main predictors for partnered men with children < 18 years of work interfering with home life: (78 per cent cases correctly predicted)-

• prefer to work less hours-
  
• partner's work interfering with home life-
  
• home life interfering with work-
  
• not enough time for family-
  
• working long hours
  
• having higher education
  

In her book The Time Bind:When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work, Arlie Russell Hochschild (1997) muses that ' The idea of more time for family life seems to have died, gone to heaven, and become an angel of an idea.'

When all is said and done there are only so many hours in a day and days in a week. Families require time and energy to nurture and enjoy. Work requires time and effort to earn essential income and keep businesses profitable. If families are important to an individual's well-being as parents and partners and to the community as a whole in the form of involved citizens, then a better way has to be found to enable these commitments to be integrated. The current trend to long and pressured hours at work, the ubiquitous presence of work at home with laptops, faxes and mobile phones combined with fear of potential redundancy if work doesn't take priority over family demands, does not engender a positive or satisfying environment for family and community life.

Employees who can achieve a more satisfying balance between personal, family, and work requirements and needs will be able to be more supportive as partners, more effective as parents and more involved as community participants. Stronger families and communities are more likely to generate the best attributes in future citizens including the future workforce. When workplace demands and stress contribute to tensions in family relationships, not only work performance is impaired, but the quality of children's, parent's and our shared community life is also diminished (Hochschild, 1997, McKenna, 1997, Edgar, 1995, Levine and Pittinsky, 1997).

Women who work part-time or at least reduced full-time hours, as this study has illustrated, experienced less interference from work to family life. There is no reason to believe that men, too, wouldn't benefit from a more balanced investment in work and family roles, as would their families.

For viable family and work partnerships to be achieved, as a community, we must define our priorities - whether we want parents, both mothers and fathers to have time for children and their own relationship, whether we want men and women, to have time to care for elderly parents and to make time for community involvement. We have to decide on the price we are all willing to pay, what personal compromises we all have to make and what necessary public and private partnerships we all will support to achieve a feasible balance between a productive and competitive workplace and a financially secure, satisfying and caring family and personal life.

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