Working Time and Family Life in the UK

This paper explores the relationship between working time flexibility and family life in the UK using data from a national survey of households carried out in the spring of 2001. The paper focuses on working hours and working-time preferences, the spillover of the working-time regime into the home, employment patterns and childcare arrangements, and work and family conflicts. The findings suggest that men and womens working time preferences and behaviour are shaped by the policy and institutional context of the working-time regime of the UK as well as the social and domestic circumstances in which they live. The findings are highly relevant to a number of current policy issues in the UK.