Canadian Women at Work

Study Reveals Many Women Happier at Work than at Home

Canadian women like working. Given the choice, fully two thirds of working women would rather continue working than stay at home. Furthermore, almost half (49%) of women would like to keep their current work schedule rather than increase or decrease their hours with a corresponding pay adjustment. Many women working part-time (42%) would actually like to increase the number of hours they are working.

Further, this new study of women and work identifies three distinct types of working women in Canada: those who feel that "Work is Home" (23%), the "Contented" (48%), and the "Stressed Out" (29%).

These are just some of the findings of an Angus Reid Group study of women employed outside the home conducted on behalf of Homemaker's Magazine conducted by telephone between June 23rd and 30th, 1997. The three segments were identified using cluster analysis, a statistical technique for grouping together people whose answers were most similar to each other. The study is featured in the October issue of Homemaker's Magazine, on newsstands this week.

Who Are the Three Groups?

"WORK IS HOME" (23%)

The "Work is Home" segment feels that home is hard work and the workplace is more like the ideal of home. The tendency is that they:

  • Feel stressed, frustrated, and pulled in all directions at home, significantly more than they do at work
  • Are not recognized and rewarded at home
  • Do not have as much fun at home as they do at work
  • Find more time for themselves at work that at home
  • Feel happier and more secure at work than at home

"CONTENTED (48%)"

The "Contented" segment are generally happy individuals with a balance between work and home. The tendency is that they:

  • Are equally happy at home and work
  • Feel the most recognized and rewarded of all three groups - both at work and home
  • Are most likely to have fun and have some time to themselves at both work and home
  • Are least likely to feel stressed, frustrated, or pulled in all directions in either work or home
  • Are more likely that the other two groups to feel secure at work and at home

"STRESSED OUT (29%)"

The "Stressed Out" segment feel intense pressure from both work and home life. The tendency is that they:

  • Are highly stressed at both work and home
  • Are least likely to have some time to themselves either at work or at home
  • Feel quite frustrated, overwhelmed and pulled in all directions at work
  • Feel as frustrated at home as at work
  • Feel less recognized and rewarded at work than any other segment
  • Have fun and enjoy themselves more at home than at work
  • Are equally happy at work and home, but less happy at work than the other two segments
  • Feel more secure at work than at home, but less secure overall than any other group

Some Findings on Working Canadian Women in General:

The survey found some other interesting views held by women who work outside of the home:

  • Women do not think their career would be harmed or that they would lose their job if they decreased the number of hours worked per week (59% feel it is not very or not likely at all to cause harm).
  • Generally, working women describe their home lives as "feeling happy" (93%), "feeling secure" (93%) and "having fun or enjoying yourself" (91%).
  • They describe their work lives along the same lines: "feeling happy" (88%), "having fun or enjoying yourself" (86%), "feeling secure" (78%).
  • There are some key differences between life at home and life at work:
  • Women are much more likely to have "a chance to have some quiet time or a minute to yourself" at home (82% -- 94% for those who don't have children at home) than they are at work (61%)
  • Women tend to feel more organized at work (89%) than they do at home (80%).
  • Slightly more women feel that they get greater reward and recognition at home (77%) than at work (70%)
  • Generally, women feel more stressed, pulled in all directions, overwhelmed and frustrated at work than they do at home. However, working moms who have children at home express significantly higher levels of these feelings than do women who do not have children at home.
  • Six in ten (61%) of working women agree that "home is my refuge from the pressures of work", compared to twenty-two percent who say that "work is my escape from the pressures of home life" -- regardless of whether or not they have children at home.

This Canada-wide poll was conducted by telephone between June 23rd and 30th, 1997, among a representative cross-section of 441 adult Canadian women who were working either full or part-time.

The data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's age composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 1996 Census data.

With the national sample of 441, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the results are within 1774.7 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within the various sub-groupings of the survey population.

For further information, contact:

Sally Armstrong
Editor-in-Chief
Homemaker's Magazine
(416) 218-3598

John Wright
Senior Vice-President
Angus Reid Group
(416) 324-2900

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