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Family work patterns
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By Sébastien LaRochelle-Côté and Claude Dionne
Despite the substantial increase women's labour market participation in recent decades, the long-term work patterns of families with children remained quite different from those of families without children.
Taking age differences between family types into account, 14% of families with children and 21% of families without children had both parents working a consistently standard schedule (between 1,500 and 2,300 hours per year) over a period of five years.
Families with children tended to stay away from long hours. About 14% of families with children were in the long-hours group (at least one parent with particularly long hours—at least once above 2,300 hours, never below 1,500—and the other with at least a consistently standard schedule) compared with 20% of families without children.
Families with children were more likely to have at least one parent with low hours (at least once below 1,500 hours without ever going above 2,300 hours) and the other parent with at least a standard schedule.
Families with long hours reported higher levels of stress than other families, but those with children did not report higher stress levels than those without. In fact, the presence of children had a greater impact on the stress level of families with a consistently standard schedule—they tended to have lower levels of stress in the absence of children, but much higher levels with the presence of children.
