Press Release 26/06/2024

SURVEY ON THE RECONCILIATION OF WORK, FAMILY AND PERSONAL LIFE. 2023

There was an increase in the number of employed people with significant trouble balancing work with their family and personal lives in the Basque Country in 2023

The differences between men and women in the amount of time spent on care and household tasks per day were at their lowest in 2023

In 2023, there was a rise in the percentage of employed people resident in the Basque Country that expressed having great difficulty balancing work with their family and personal lives, according to Eustat data.

Almost one in three people with dependants (32.9%) claimed to have great difficulty balancing work with their care, 4 percentage points more than in 2022. This same degree of difficulty was perceived by 29.2% of the working population when it came to caring for their children, 1.1 percentage points more than in 2022. Lastly, 27.7% of employed people stated that they had a high degree of difficulty balancing work with personal activities, 3.7 percentage points more.

In terms of the differences between men and women, it is worth pointing out that the percentage of people in work who claimed to have a lot of difficulty combining work with other aspects of life was slightly higher among women than men.

The differences between men and women in the amount of time spent on care and household tasks per day were at their lowest in 2023. If we look at the situation 10 years ago, the difference in terms of caring for dependants and household tasks narrowed by 0.4 hours, and the difference with regard to caring for children decreased by 0.7 hours.

Despite the differences diminishing over time, women continued to spend more time on these aspects. Thus, women who worked outside the home and had children under the age of 15 spent, on average, 1.1 hours more per day on their care than working men (4.7 and 3.6 hours, respectively).

Furthermore, regarding the time people in work spent looking after dependent persons, on average, women spent 0.4 hours more per day on this activity than men (2.3 and 1.9 hours, respectively).

Lastly, as regards the distribution of domestic tasks between working men and working women, women once again spent 0.4 hours more per day on these tasks than men (2 and 1.6 hours, respectively).

This uneven distribution of duties when carrying out domestic tasks meant that 13.3% of working women were very unsatisfied with the collaboration offered by their spouse or partner. In contrast, a high number of working men were very satisfied with their partner’s participation (76.6%). Despite these evaluations, the percentage of men declaring themselves to be very satisfied with the time they spend on household tasks (55.6%) was similar to that for women (51%).

It is worth highlighting that, for the first time since the survey began, it was working men who expressed greater satisfaction with both time spent looking after their children and time spent caring for dependants. 59.6% of men claimed to be satisfied with regard to looking after their children, and 42.5% with regard to caring for dependants. Among working women, these percentages dropped to 58.9% and 40.8%.

Regarding the level of satisfaction with time spent on personal activities, nearly half of the working population stated that they were very satisfied (48%), with men expressing greater satisfaction (51.8%) than women (44%).

As regards general job satisfaction, the overall rating was 7.4 (out of 10), with some differences according to specific aspects. The lowest-rated aspect was promotion in the workplace, with 4.0; followed by flexibility of working hours, with 6.3; breaks during the working day, with 6.6; and salary remuneration, with 6.8. The highest-rated aspects were working hours, with 7.3, holidays and permissions for leave, with 7.4, and stability, with 7.8.

36.7% of the working population extended their usual working day to some extent

20.7% of the population in work regularly had to spend more time at work than established or foreseen, an increase of 3.9 percentage points with respect to 2022. Another 16% sometimes had to extend their working day, 1.5 percentage points less than a year ago.

Furthermore, 15% of working men believed that requesting paternity leave would be highly detrimental to them. However, just 8.9% of men believed that paternity could affect them slightly, compared to 24.7% of working women who believed that maternity could create promotion inequalities. The fear that requesting leave or reduced hours for family reasons would affect their professional career was greater amongst women than men (29.3% and 23.3% respectively).

15.8% of employed people worked from home to a greater or lesser extent

Amongst the various measures that might facilitate the reconciliation of work, family and personal life, occasional absences from work were within reach of 69.7% of the working population, followed by the possibility of requesting leave in the form of unpaid days off (63.5%). Furthermore, almost half the working population stated that they experienced little difficulty in obtaining extended leaves of absence (47.8%) or a reduction in working hours (48.7%).

Regarding flexible finishing times, in respect of 2022, there was a decrease of 1.6 points in the percentage of individuals who benefited from this measure facilitating work-life balance: while in 2022 the percentage was 52.6%, in 2023 it fell to 51%. Men benefited the most, as 56.5% had a flexible timetable compared to 45.3% of women.

As for working from home, the percentage of individuals working in this way (to a greater or lesser extent) was 15.8%, 2 points less than in 2022. Furthermore, the proportion of those working from home at least half of the time was 6.8%, 1 tenth of a percentage point more than in 2022 and 4 percentage points less than in 2020, when it reached its highest percentage (10.8%). When working from home is carried out occasionally, this percentage reaches 9%, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points compared to 2022, and a rise of 1.7 compared to 2020.

With respect to the different types of working day, a steady decrease was seen in the percentage of people who had a split working day. While in 2013, 40.8% of people worked morning and afternoon shifts only, in 2023 this was 27.5%, hence there was an increase in the percentage of people who had a continuous working day (51.6% in 2013 to 59.8% in 2023) or a mixed working day (from 7.7% in 2013 to 12.8% in 2023).

In households where both partners worked, looking after children during the working hours of the parents corresponded to schools in 91.1% of cases, on 4% of occasions to both working parents, and in 3.2% of cases to family members or other people who were not paid.

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, was provided in most cases by both parents (61.5%), and less frequently by family members or people who were not paid (20.3%), by the mother (10.4%) or the father (4.7%).

Finally, in relation to work preferences, the working population opted for the status of salaried worker (84.3%) against that of self-employed worker (15.7%), and preferred to work in the public sector (59.3%) as opposed to the private sector (40.7%), while there was a more balanced distribution when it came to choosing between large companies (56.8%) and small companies (43.2%).

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