Half of Quebec construction workers who have children live with work-life balance problems, according to a new study published in January.
Posted at 2:39 p.m.
45% of them, both men and women, say that their job has a major negative influence on their family life. All of the people surveyed had either children or a sick or aging relative in their care.
Construction jobs “are characterized by non-standard hours, harsh working conditions and a masculine culture that values physical strength and availability,” the study argued. Two-thirds (63%) of survey respondents “reported having a heavy or very heavy workload.”
People who said they had problems balancing work and family often had “poorer physical health” and “greater emotional exhaustion, which is an important indicator of psychological health”.
Labor shortage
This situation could also contribute to the labor shortage in the sector, argued the authors of the article, Mélanie Lefrançois and Mélanie Trottier, two professors from the School of Management Sciences at UQAM.
Indeed, “Family-Work conflicts seem to affect the job satisfaction of men and women. This manifests in their intention to quit their job, or even the industry,” they found.
Men are more likely to want to leave for this reason. They “are more likely to have jobs that involve outside work, which is more affected by seasonal work and involves long and unpredictable hours. They are also expected to accept mandatory overtime.
“While my spouse was taking care of the homework (of the children), I was doing the supper, then the dishes, and then I had to play with them, we can’t put them to bed without first taking care of them , said a civil engineer. I didn’t have time to go to bed at 7 p.m. Now I sit on a chair and I can’t help it, sometimes it lasts 10 minutes, but my eyes close on their own. I am older now […] I’m more tired at night. »
A worker for her part explained that “at the end of the day, I’m not going to have a beer with the guys. I have to go home, do everything, be ready for the next day. It’s literally a race against time.
Women hard hit
If family life is affected in the same way among workers, regardless of their gender, women are the first to see their career disrupted by their family duties.
“Women were significantly more affected by this issue, pointed out the study, probably because they were more often interrupted by family problems, such as receiving calls from school or having to leave work because of a sick child, the study concluded. This type of conflict is less observed among men, probably because they often have a wife at home who they can rely on to meet such demands. »
For example, a worker testified to being the third option if his child falls ill, after his wife and grandparents.
A worker, for her part, explained that with her spouse “it has always been our agreement. His job takes priority, I’m the second earner. I can be more flexible with my hours.”
Others are single parents, and must therefore juggle the different facets of their lives. “If the school calls, I have no choice, I have to leave work, said one of them, on the other hand, in construction, you don’t get paid if you don’t. is not there, so of course the work is not progressing. »
Only 2.4% of workers in the sector were women in 2019, according to the Commission de la construction du Québec.
But the division of labor according to gender stereotypes also affects men, many of whom feel the pressure to put money on the table. Their strategy is often to work even harder, as one explained: “It’s important, because having children is expensive, and I need the full insurance plan (only available after a certain number of hours worked), so it’s a compromise we make with my wife”.
The study is based on a survey of 789 workers, 85% of whom are men. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 20 workers, 14 men and 6 women.
This study was funded by the Ministère de la Famille, after it determined, in 2017, that in the construction sector, “companies and organizations belonging to this environment have the lowest rate of implementation of measures of WBC (work-family balance)” in relation to all the areas studied.
This article was produced with the financial support of the Facebook and The Canadian Press News Fellowships.