Men's long working hours damage family life

A study of 6,000 parents found that more than one in four fathers were working over 50 hours a week - making it less likely they would help in the house or take part in family social activities. Mothers, who generally worked shorter hours, were carrying the major responsibility for child care as well as for cooking, cleaning and other household chores.

There was little evidence that having two parents working full-time eroded family life unless they worked long hours. But family meals and social visits were less frequent when fathers worked more than 50 hours a week. Children whose mothers worked more than 35 hours were less likely to be visited at home by other children.

And while as many as 80 per cent of parents said they were happy in their family relationships, the analysis identified a large minority of mothers with partners providing little help in the home who were discontented and vulnerable to depression. Women with uninvolved partners were specially likely to describe themselves as unhappy if they, themselves, were working full-time.

The study, by Elsa Ferri and Kate Smith of the City University, used data from the longitudinal National Child Development Study to look at the lives of 33-year old parents who were living in first marriages. It found that:

• The majority of parents were in paid work. 59 per cent of mothers and 53 per cent of fathers lived in dual-earner families.
• More than a quarter of all fathers worked 50 or more hours a week and nearly one in ten worked more than 60 hours. Two out of three fathers regularly worked 'unsocial hours' in the evening or at weekends.
• Only one in four mothers worked more than 35 hours a week and one in three worked fewer than 16 hours. But four out of ten worked unsocial hours, including one in seven who worked at night - an indication of 'shift parenting' with less chance of children spending time with both parents.
• Two out of three working mothers relied on family and friends to look after their children. Only four out of ten mothers with pre-school children made any use of formal day care provision. Fewer than 2 per cent had child care provided by their employer.
• Fathers tended to take a more equal share of child care and household work when their partners worked. But even in families where both parents worked full-time, it was mothers who took the major responsibility at home - for example, by taking time off to care for sick children.
• Fathers who worked long or unsocial hours did less at home regardless of whether their partners were also working. Yet there was little evidence of any marked increase in the contribution made by fathers at home when they were unemployed and their partners were working. Mothers in these families appeared to carry an especially heavy burden.
• Although eight out of ten parents said they were happy with their marital relationships, mothers and fathers in families with no earner or only the mother in work reported relatively high levels of unhappiness, dissatisfaction and vulnerability to depression.
• The extent to which fathers shared in the care and upbringing of children was a key factor in the happiness and satisfaction with married life of mothers. The discontent of women whose partners took little domestic responsibility increased with the number of hours that they, themselves, were working.
• Marital happiness and life satisfaction reported by fathers was not strongly linked to involvement with their children. However, a high level of domestic responsibility combined with long working hours did appear - as with mothers - to be a source of stress.

Dr. Ferri said: "These results underline the difficulties that many parents face in reconciling work and child care responsibilities. Greater job insecurity, more casual employment and pressure to work longer hours have been antipathetic to family life and this underlines the need for employment policies that help parents to cope. "Allowing paternity leave as well as maternity leave and giving parents the right to take leave from work for family reasons would be an important step in the right direction. So, too, would be an increase in affordable child care facilities, since it is clear that provision still lags far behind demand."