Category: News
Date: 29.01.2006
Printable version
In a nationwide survey for 91Èȱ¬ ONE's Panorama, 35 per cent of children said their parents brought work home with them at least once a week.
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Panorama: Get A Life (Sunday 29 January 2006, 91Èȱ¬ ONE, 10.15pm) explores how Britain's long-hours culture is invading our children's lives.
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In an ICM opinion poll, for Panorama, 500 children aged 11 to 16 were asked what they thought of their parents' working lives.
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83% thought mothers of children aged three and under should not go out to work full-time
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35% thought their parents were "stressed out"
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35% said their parents brought work home with them at least once a week (13% said every day)
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33% said they would like to spend more time with dad; 20% more time with mum
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71% of children with both parents working said mum did most of the household chores
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31% expected to work longer hours in the future than their parent who worked the most
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51% said that in the future earning a lot of money would be more important than having more leisure time.
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Will Hutton, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation, says: "The expectation is that you take work home; the expectation is that you're rung at weekends or after hours to do something.
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"The expectation is that if someone's mismanaged a process and to get the job done requires working anti-social hours then you'll do it."
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Since 2003, parents of children under six have had the legal right to request flexible working.
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The Government hopes to extend that right further to those with other caring responsibilities.
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But Ruth Lea, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, urges caution: "Especially in small businesses with perhaps two or three employees, they say we'd love to be flexible, we'd love to give more part time work, we'd love to have more job share, but quite honestly with our sort of business it just ain't on, it's not practical."
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Commenting on the poll results, Lea says:
"People are trying to pack more and more into their lives and work of course is part of that and they might say it's work's fault but actually it's their overall lifestyle that is the problem."
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