According to a survey of more than 1,000 US adults by the Families and Work Institute in New York, the parents of teenagers tend to feel more burdened and overworked than the parents of younger children. Released last week, the findings add a new wrinkle to the available research on work hours and stress.
"We found out, for the first time, that parents of teens are more likely to be overworked than the working parents of younger children," said Erin Brownfield, a spokeswoman at the institute. "In fact, parents, in general, are not any more overworked than others. That was a big surprise."
The study also reinforced the idea that people who enjoy the work they do and know their contributions are valued are less likely to feel overburdened by work, even when they're doing more.
"Low-value work is perceived as a waste of time and that makes people feel even more overworked," said Brownfield. "Multitasking can also make people feel overworked. When they have too many tasks that must be done at the same time, they feel as if they are working too hard and too much."
The report also further confirmed what overburdened workers have been suffering through for years: that too much work and too little play can cause depression, poor health, and higher stress levels.
"We found that 44 percent of US employees are overworked often or very often according to various measures, but only 29 percent rarely or never experience those dimensions of being overworked," said James T. Bond, vice president of research at the institute.
Bond said people who rarely feel overworked are more likely to have "positive outcomes."
"As overwork increases, outcomes in terms of mental health, errors at work, and wanting to change employers also change. So, bad stuff is often associated with feeling overworked frequently."
For example, depression is becoming a more common problem among the overworked. The study revealed that 21 percent of those who described themselves as highly overworked showed high levels of depressive symptoms compared to only 8 percent of those with low levels of overwork.
The term "overwork" has become more familiar to millions of people since economist Juliet Schor's 1991 book, "The Overworked American," shattered the myth that Americans were slackers. Schor discovered that US employees were logging an extra 160 hours per year, or about one month annually.
She blamed the bigger workload on higher consumer debt and the loss of union power. She also blamed the dearth of leisure time for a number of social ills, including the breakdown of family life.
Schor also found that vacations were dwindling. The authors of the institute's study seem to agree. They found that although vacations are supposed to be safety valves that help people relax and rejuvenate, many Americans just don't take them.
Brownfield attributed this trend to new technology. The more linked people are to work by faxes, phones, the Internet, broadband, and other technology, the more those tools have helped make vacation an extension of the workplace.
"Vacations obviously have a restorative effect on employees, with most feeling more relaxed (83 percent) and more energized (74 percent) when they return from their longest vacations," said the report. "However, a significant proportion of the US workforce 43 percent return from their vacations feeling overwhelmed by everything they have to do . . . Work piled up during their vacation causing some to talk about feeling that they are drowning in accumulated work."
The institute suggests that employers allow their work teams to set aside time during the day when employees do not have to interrupt each other. One reason: having the ability to concentrate fully on the task at hand should allow workers to complete assignments and leave work at a suitable time.
Brownfield noted that when unnecessary and lengthy meetings are scheduled, employees may be forced to stay later to makeup the time, causing them to feel anxious. Next, the institute suggests that employers set realistic deadlines.
"There should be a balance between the kind of pressure that energizes employees and fosters the development of new competencies and the kind of pressure that depletes them," said the study. Finally, the report says employers should encourage workers to take their vacations and not bank them. They can also urge supervisors to tap others to complete tasks that need to be done while the vacationing employee is away.
Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
