24/7 Work Schedule Challenges Marriages

The demands of busy 24/7 work schedules can have considerable impact on marriage relationships. Sometimes it’s simply that someone is spending too much time building their career with a genuine desire to provide the best materially for their family, forgetting that time spent with their family is a priority. Evenings and some weekends may be spent at work. Constant excuses that they’re too busy to attend their child’s birthday party or sports day, may lead to a growing resentment that work is put before family.

Other careers are genuinely demanding and require staff to work long hours and be on call 24/7. Jobs in medicine, in the police or armed services may expose workers to dangerous situations and lives can be lost if they are not attentive to their work to a high degree and not bound by time constraints. Others may work in the provision of food, healthcare jobs and the sale of commodities where they have no choice about shift work. “Married to the job” is a frequent complaint from neglected spouses even if it was obvious from the outset of the relationship that their loved one's job was going to demand a large portion of their time.

There are also those who become obsessed with their career and the perks, privileges and powers they have, or those who are workaholics who choose work before relationships even though they may end up losing their marriage, children and some of their assets.

Research

Research has shown that people working shift work tend to experience greater marital instability. David Maume, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Kanz Centre for the Study of Work & Family at the University of Cincinnati recently completed a research paper titled “Passing in the night: Examining Work Schedules and Marital
Quality”. His paper updates and extends the rather limited and dated research on the link between work diversity and marital quality.

The study focused on 370 grocery and drug store union workers (65 percent women and 35 percent men) who worked late shifts. All of the people who took part in the survey were married. The average age of the men was 50 and the women 48. The average length of the marriages of those who took part was 19 years. Most were white
with African Americans and Hispanics making 9 percent men and 5 percent women.

The results found that the men felt that working the night shift negatively affected the quality of their marriages. However, the majority of women felt that rotating work schedules strained their marriage. Women said they found it more difficult to get everything done at home and engage with family members.

“It is this disruptive effect on family life which strains women's marriages rather than the times they work," Maume said. He also noted that his study backs previous research that shows that “to a greater degree than men, women’s work schedules disrupt their ability to care for and nurture other family members, and women’s marriages suffer as a result.”

Other opinion from Professor Harriet B. Presser of the University of Maryland also agrees with many of Maume’s findings. Her book “Working in a 24/7 Economy – challenges for American families” published in 2003 by the Russell Sage Foundation shares the belief that the effect of rotating night shifts is generally negative for the functioning of family life and for the well being of parents and children alike.

24/7 Work culture here to stay

It seems that the 24/7 work culture will be here for at least the next decade and probably more. Although we may welcome an economy where we can buy products or use services well after day hours, we should be aware that there can be difficulties for workers and their families. There may well be a social cost to society as some married relationships may falter as a result of:

• Less quality time together
• The non night or weekend working partner spending long hours alone
• Individuals suffering from lack of sleep because of their work schedule
• More childcare done by the non working partner
• Complex childcare arrangements for preschoolers which may require several caregivers
• Changes in how the family functions
• The inability to maintain family rituals and social activities that unite a family
• Individuals who are stressed by the long hours of work being stressed at home