Construction workers have trouble balancing job and family: study

Article content

Half of Quebec’s construction workers with children have problems balancing work and family, according to a new study published in January.

Article content

They are men and women among the 45 per cent of construction workers who say their work has a negative influence on family life. All those surveyed had either children or a family member who was sick or elderly to take care of.

Jobs in construction “are characterized by unusual schedules, difficult work conditions and a masculine culture in which physical strength and high availability are valued,” according to the study. Two-thirds (63 per cent) of respondents “reported having a big or very big work load.”

Those who claimed to have problems balancing work and family often suffered from “worse physical health” and “greater emotional exhaustion, which is an important indicator of psychological health.”

This situation may also contribute to the labor shortage in the sector, according to the authors of the article, Mélanie Lefrançois and Mélanie Trottier, two professors at UQAM’s École des sciences de la gestion.

Article content

“Work-family conflicts seem to affect the job satisfaction of men and women,” they observed. “This is shown by their intention of quitting, or even leaving the industry.”

Men are much more likely to want to leave for this reason. Men “have more of a chance of holding positions that require working outside, that are more affected by seasonal labor and that require working long and unpredictable hours. They are also expected to work mandatory overtime.”

One engineer said: “While my wife was taking care of homework (with the kids), I was making dinner and doing the dishes, and after I had to play with them. You can’t put them to bed without first taking care of them. I didn’t have time to go to bed at 7 pm Now, I sit on a chair and I can’t help it — sometimes it’s only for 10 minutes, but my eyes won’t stay open. I’m older now. … I’m more tired at night.”

Article content

A woman said: “At the end of the day, I’m not going to grab a beer with the guys. I have to go home, do everything, then be ready for the next day. It’s literally a race against the clock.”

Although family life is affected the same way among workers, independent of gender, women are more likely to have their careers disrupted by family duties.

“Women were significantly more affected by this factor,” according to the study, “probably because they were more often interrupted by family problems, like receiving calls from school or having to leave work because of a sick child.

“This type of conflict was less frequent among men, probably because they often have a wife at home on whom they can rely to respond to those types of demands.”

Article content

For example, a male worker said he was the third option if his child falls ill, after his wife and the grandparents.

Meanwhile, a female worker explained with her partner, “that was always our understanding. His job has priority, I’m the second income. I can be more flexible with my schedules.”

Others are single parents and must juggle the different aspects of their lives.

“If school calls, I have no choice, I have to leave work,” one woman said. “And in construction, we’re not paid if we’re not there, so things don’t move forward.”

Only 2.4 per cent of construction workers 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 pressure to provide financially for their family. Their strategy is often to work even harder, as one worker explained.

Article content

“It’s important, because having kids is expensive,” he said, “and I need the full health-insurance plan (which is only available after working a certain number of hours), so it’s a compromise my wife and I made.”

The study was based on a survey of 789 workers, 85 per cent of whom were men. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 20 workers, of which 14 were men and six were women.

The study was financed by the ministry of family after the ministry determined in 2017 in the world of construction, “companies and organizations have the lowest rate of implementation of measures fostering a work-life balance, of all fields studied.

This article was produced with the financial help of the Facebook and Presse Canadienne bursaries for news.