Press release 20/06/2018
One in five people in work in the Basque Country habitually prolong their working day in 2017
13% of the working population consider that maternity/paternity could seriously damage their professional career
21.6% of the working population had to habitually dedicate more hours to their job than those established or foreseen, and another 17.6% did so sometimes, according to Eustat data. Compared to the previous year, the percentage of people who find themselves forced to prolong their working day, habitually or sporadically, has increased by 0.7 points, from 38.5% to 39.2%. This prolongation in the working day affects men more than women, as while 17.4% of men and a similar percentage of women (17.9%) sometimes extend their working day, a greater percentage of men almost always prolong their working day, 23.8% compared to 19.3% of women.
On the other hand, 17.6% of working men believe that requesting paternity leave would be highly detrimental to them. Notwithstanding, just 6.6% of men believe that paternity could affect them slightly compared to 20% of working women, who believe that maternity could create promotion inequalities. The fear that requesting leave or reduced hours would affect career options was slightly greater amongst women than amongst men (34.7% and 33.6% respectively).
Generally speaking, one in three working people in the Basque Country stated having problems balancing work with caring for dependants (33.5%) and a similar percentage with looking after their minor children (28%). This high degree of difficulty is also perceived by 26.1% of working people when it involves balancing work with personal activities.
It should be pointed out that men experienced greater difficulty in balancing work with caring for young children, since 63.6% stated having a medium or high degree of difficulty as opposed to 56.4% of women.
Women who work outside the home and have children under the age of 15 dedicated 5.1 hours per day to their care, whilst working men dedicated just 3.3 hours per day. The difference reduces between working people who look after dependants, an activity to which women dedicate 2 hours per day compared to 1.4 for men.
In addition, just over half of working women dedicate 5 hours or more per day to looking after children (55%) and one in eight to attending to dependants (12.1%). In turn, and on the contrary, 38.5% working men collaborated with 2 hours or less looking after their children.
In comparison with data from 2010 it is apparent that the percentage of women who dedicated a large number of hours - 5 or more - to caring for their sons and daughters was maintained, whereas the percentage corresponding to men is increasing and reached its highest level in 2017 (24.4%), 9.2 percentage points more than in 2010.
The distribution of domestic tasks amongst working men and working women in the Basque Country is also imbalanced: nine out of ten men, 87%, dedicate 2 hours or less to those tasks, whilst three out of ten women, 31.2%, dedicate 3 hours or more.
This uneven distribution of functions means that 18.8% of working women () were very unsatisfied with the collaboration offered by their spouse or partner in carrying out domestic tasks. In contrast, a high number of working men are very satisfied with the participation of their partner (75.5%). Despite this, the percentage of men declaring themselves to be very satisfied with the time they spend on household tasks (42.2%) is similar to that for women (43.9%).
It is worth mentioning that working women express a greater satisfaction from looking after their children - 57.9% indicate a high satisfaction - and their dependents - 45.9% - ; for working men, these percentages drop to 49.9% and 40.7%, respectively.
Four out of ten working people have little difficulty in obtaining extended leaves of absence or a reduction in working hours.
Amongst the various methods that might facilitate the reconciliation of work, family and personal life, short-term leave is within reach of the large majority of the working population, followed by the possibility of requesting leave in the form of unpaid days off. In addition, four out of ten working people stated that they experienced little difficulty in obtaining extended leaves of absence or a reduction in working hours.
A flexible timetable for finishing work, another supplementary solution for improving reconciliation, was enjoyed by one in three people in work (34.6%). As regards working from home, 8.3% of people in work worked sporadically from home and 5.5% at least half of the time.
On 28% of occasions it was unpaid family members who took responsibility for the sporadic care of the children of working parents during their working hours.
In households where both partners worked, looking after children outside the working hours of the father or mother corresponded in 97.9% of occasions to both of them; however, the father took responsibility in just 0.1% of these cases, whereas this figure rose to 0.6% for occasions when the mother took sole responsibility.
In these same households, the sporadic care of children when, during working hours, they have to be taken to the doctor, are ill or do not have school, corresponds to both parents on 56.7% of occasions, on 28% to unpaid family members and on 8.6% to the mother; only on 3.3% of occasions does the father take responsibility for their care.
Finally, in relation to work preferences, the working population opted for the condition of salaried worker (83.7%) against that of self-employed worker (16.3%) and for working in the public sector (62.2%) as opposed to the private sector (37.8%), while this preference is more balanced between large companies (56.5%) and small companies (43.5%)
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62