Reducing Work-Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn't?

2.0 Methodology

The methodology section is divided into three parts. Information on the sample is presented first. This is followed by a brief discussion, in section 2.2, of the procedures used to collect the data. The statistical techniques used in this report are covered in section 2.3.

2.1 Who Responded to the National Work-Life Conflict Study?

The sample for the National Work-Life Conflict Study was drawn from 100 Canadian companies with 500+ employees. Forty of these organizations operated in the private sector, 22 were from the public sector and 38 were from the not-for-profit sector. Private sector companies from the following sectors were included in the sample: telecommunications, high technology, retail, transportation, pharmaceutical, financial services, entertainment, natural resources and manufacturing. The public sector sample included 7 municipal governments, 7 provincial government departments and 8 federal public service departments/agencies. The not-for-profit sector sample consisted of 15 hospitals/district health councils, 10 school boards, 8 universities and colleges, and 5 "other" organizations that could best be classified as not-for-profit/greater public service (e.g. social service, charity, protective services).

A total of 31,571 employees responded to the survey. The sample is distributed as follows:

• Just under half (46%) of the respondents work in the public sector. One in three works in the not-for-profit sector and 20% are employed by a private sector company.
• Just over half (55%) of the respondents are women.
• Just under half (46%) of the respondents work in managerial and professional positions, 40% work in non-professional positions (e.g. clerical, administrative, retail, production) and 14% work in technical jobs.
• Just over half (56%) of the respondents have dependent care responsibilities (i.e. spend an hour or more a week in either child care or elder care).

A full description of the sample can be found in Reports One (demographics, demands), Two (work-life conflict and its impact), Three (impact of work-life conflict on use of health care system) and Four (predictors of work-life conflict) of this series (see Appendix A for bibliographic details). Key details that may be of interest to the readers of this report are given below.

Demographic Profile of Respondents

The 2001 survey sample is well distributed with respect to age, geographic area of residence, community size, job type, education, personal income and family income. The mean age of the respondents is 42.8 years. Approximately half of the respondents are highly educated knowledge workers (i.e. managers and professionals). The majority of respondents (75%) are married or living with a partner and are part of a dual-income family (69% of the sample). Eleven percent are single parents. Twelve percent live in rural areas. One quarter of the respondents indicate that money is tight in their family, which is consistent with the fact that 29% of respondents earn less than $40,000 per year. One in three of the respondents has high school education or less.

Most respondents have responsibilities outside of work. Seventy percent are parents (average number of children for parents in the sample is 2.1); 60% have elder care responsibilities (average number of elderly dependents is 2.3); 13% have responsibility for the care of a disabled relative; 13% have both child care and elder care demands (i.e. are part of the "sandwich generation"). The fact that the demographic characteristics of the sample correspond closely to national data provided by Statistics Canada (see Higgins & Duxbury, 2002) suggests that the findings from this study can be generalized to a larger population.

Sample Profile: Levels of Work-Life Conflict

Four types of work-life conflict are examined in this study: role overload, work-to-family interference, family-to-work interference and role overload. Role overload occurs when the total demands on time and energy associated with the prescribed activities of multiple roles are too great to perform the roles adequately or comfortably. The majority of employees in our sample (58%) are currently experiencing high levels of role overload. Another 30% report moderate levels of role overload. Only 12% of the respondents report low levels. Our research suggests that the proportion of the workforce experiencing high levels of role overload increased substantially from 1991 to 2001 (i.e. by approximately 11%).

Work-to-family interference occurs when work demands and responsibilities make it more difficult for an employee to fulfill family-role responsibilities. One in four Canadians in this sample reports that work responsibilities interfere with their ability to fulfill responsibilities at home. Almost 40% of respondents report moderate levels of interference. The proportion of the Canadian workforce with high levels of work-to-family interference has not changed appreciably from 1991 to 2001.

Family-to-work interference occurs when family demands and responsibilities make it difficult for an employee to fulfill work-role responsibilities. Only 10% of the Canadians in this sample report high levels of family-to-work interference. Another third report moderate levels of family-to-work interference. Our data suggest that the percentage of working Canadians who experience this form of interference has doubled over the past decade.

Approximately one in four respondents experiences what can be considered to be high levels of caregiver strain: physical, financial or mental stress that comes from looking after an elderly dependent. While most respondents (74%) rarely experience this form of work-life conflict, 26% report high levels of caregiver strain.

Who has more problems balancing work and family responsibilities? The evidence from this research is quite clear--employed Canadians with dependent care responsibilities. Employees who have child and/or elder care responsibilities report higher levels of role overload, work-to-family interference, family-to-work interference and caregiver strain than their counterparts without dependent care. The fact that employed parents and elder caregivers have greater difficulty balancing work and family is consistent with the research in this area and can be attributed to two factors: greater non-work demands and lower levels of control over their time.

Job type is associated with all but one of the measures of work-life conflict explored in this study. Managers and professionals are more likely than those in "other" jobs to experience high levels of overload and work-to-family interference. This finding is consistent with the fact that the managers and professionals in this sample spent significantly more time in paid employment and were more likely to perform unpaid overtime than colleagues who worked in clerical, administrative, technical and production jobs. Those in "other" jobs, on the other hand, are more likely to report higher levels of caregiver strain from the financial stresses associated with elder care.

Women are more likely than men to report high levels of role overload and high caregiver strain. This is consistent with the finding that the women in this sample devote more hours per week than men to non-work activities such as child care and elder care and are more likely to have primary responsibility for non-work tasks.