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

4.4 Off-Shifting Child Care

Researchers have observed that one out of ten full-time dual-income couples with children in the U.S. had no overlap whatsoever in their hours of employment. They have inferred from these data that shift work may be advantageous to couples with children in that it enables them to reduce dependence on non-parental care arrangements by off-shifting child care. The Canadian National Child Care Study reported similar findings. It noted that 17% of dual-income families in Canada deliberately worked off-shifts (i.e. spouses worked different shifts from each other) for child care purposes.⁴³

To determine the extent to which employees who work for large Canadian organizations use off-shifting, we asked respondents if they choose to work different hours than their partner to better manage child care or elder care responsibilities.

One in three respondents off-shifts

Almost one third of the respondents (31%) indicated that they did in fact off-shift with their partner to better manage work and family responsibilities. The off-shifting is a strategy that is used by men and those in managerial and professional positions to help them balance competing work and family demands. The men were more likely than women to off-shift (45% of men versus 25% of females off-shift) regardless of job type or dependent care status. Male and female managers were more likely to use off-shifting than their counterparts in other jobs (45% of the male managers in our sample and 37% of the female managers and professionals used off-shifting versus 29% of male and 16% of females in other jobs). Men with dependent care were more likely to off-shift than men without such responsibilities (42% versus 25%). The likelihood of off-shifting was not associated with dependent care status for the females.

Off-shifting is not associated with work-life conflict

Unfortunately, employees who are attempting to cope with work-life conflict by off-shifting work hours with their spouse realize little gain from such a strategy. None of the forms of work-life conflict considered in this study was significantly associated with this strategy.

4.5 What Can Employees Do to Increase Work-Life Balance?

What can employees personally do to reduce the amount of work-life conflict that they experience? Unfortunately, the findings from this study would suggest that there is not much they can do. None of the following personal coping strategies was associated with any of the forms of work-life conflict examined in this study: talked with family or friends, talked with colleagues at work, sought help from family or friends, sought help from colleagues at work, found another activity to take their mind off things, tried to forget about it, schedule, plan and organize, and have an alcoholic drink. Furthermore, while several strategies were found to have an impact on work-life conflict, their effect was either associated with only one form of work-life conflict under a specific set of conditions or was complex in nature. For example, the delegation of tasks and prioritizing seem to help women with dependent care cope with role overload, but only when job type is taken into account. The relationship between the use of prescription medicine and three forms of work-life conflict (role overload, work-to-family interference and caregiver strain), on the other hand, is complex and can be best described as a u-shaped function. Moderate use of this coping mechanism is associated with increased levels of role overload (when job type is taken into account), work-to-family interference and caregiver strain (when dependent care status is taken into account). Daily use of prescription drugs, however, is associated with an increased ability to cope with these three forms of work-life conflict. It should be noted, however, that this strategy comes at a cost and is not sustainable over time. These data support the need for the employer to introduce policies and practices that address work-life conflict.

More worrisome are the findings that show that some of the strategies individuals use to cope with work-life conflict exacerbate the stresses they are under rather than alleviate the conflict. Specifically, just under half of the sample indicated that they try to cope -- by just working harder -- and trying to do it all -- a strategy that is associated with a substantial increase in role overload and work-to-family interference. This strategy is also associated with elevated levels of family-to-work interference and caregiver strain for employees with dependent care responsibilities. Similarly, one in ten of the employees in the same group copes by reducing the quality of the things they do at work and at home. An additional one in five uses this strategy weekly. This is unfortunate as levels of role overload, work-to-family interference and family-to-work interference increase significantly concomitant with the use of this strategy.

Also cause for concern is the link between work-life conflict and decision making with respect to family size. Employees in general and women in managerial and professional positions, in particular, who are overloaded and experience higher levels of work-to-family interference are substantively more likely to decide to limit their family size, delay starting a family and decide not to have children than their counterparts with better balance. While the relationship is not as strong as that observed for overload and work-to-family interference, the data also show a significant positive association between these decisions and higher levels of family-to-work interference and caregiver strain. These findings provide a further incentive for Canadian organizations and governments to address the issue of work-life conflict.

Finally, it should be noted that 38% of the respondents who try to cope by off-shifting their work schedules with their partner are not more able to cope with work-life conflict than their peers who do not use this strategy. Awareness of this finding may cause some employees to re-consider their use of this strategy.