2012 National Study on Balancing Work and Caregiving in Canada

The study examined work-life experiences of 25,000 Canadians who were employed full time in 71 public, private and not-for-profit organizations across all provinces and territories between June 2011 and June 2012. Two-thirds of survey respondents had incomes of $60,000 or more a year and two-thirds were parents.

Previous studies were conducted in 1991 and 2001.

“It is fascinating to see what has changed over time and what hasn’t,’’ said Duxbury.

Among the findings:

Most Canadian employees still work a fixed nine-to-five schedule – about two-thirds.

Overall, the typical employee spends 50.2 hours in work-related activities a week. Just over half of employees take work home to complete outside regular hours.

The use of flexible work arrangements such as a compressed work week (15 per cent) and flexible schedules (14 per cent) is much less common.

Fifty-seven per cent of those surveyed reported high levels of stress.

One-third of working hours are spent using email.

Employees in the survey were twice as likely to let work interfere with family as the reverse.

Work-life conflict was associated with higher absenteeism and lower productivity.

Succession planning, knowledge transfer and change management are likely to be a problem for many Canadian organizations.

There has been little career mobility within Canadian firms over the past several years.