Personal and Work-Life Balance 2021 - Job and Life Satisfaction and Barriers to Work

This publication “Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey – Job and Life Satisfaction and Barriers to Work“ is the second of a series of three publications presenting the results of the Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey. The Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey collects information on how we balance the different aspects of our lives, including work and our personal life.

The data in this publication was collected as part of the Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey which was carried out for the first time in the third quarter (July to September) of 2021. The results of the survey will be published as a series of three publications being published during the month of April. The first of these publications was published on Tuesday 5^th April, and presented the Main Results of the survey. Today’s publication “Job and Life Satisfaction and Barriers to Work” is the second in the series of publications of the results of this survey and covers job and life satisfaction and work-life balance, and also covers barriers to work for those not currently in employment. Following this publication today, the publication on “Remote Working” will be published on 26^th April. Again, this last publication is a subset of the main data collection for the Personal and Work-Life Balance Survey.

This publication today covers job satisfaction and work-life balance for those in employment, life satisfaction of all respondents to the survey and the type of support networks available from family, friends, and community. While the survey focussed primarily on persons in employment, it also looked at barriers to work for persons not currently in employment.

• The majority of employees are satisfied with their job – over one quarter (25.9%) are very satisfied, while nearly two thirds (63%) are satisfied. See Table 2.1.
• One in nine employees are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their job. Of employees who were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their job, nearly nine in ten (88.4%) said that they have to work very hard in their job, while almost six in ten (59.3%) never have enough time to get their job done, and just short of half (49.1%) have to work more than their formal hours to get the job done. See Tables 2.1 and 2.2.
• Full-time workers with long service were more likely to turn down an offer of a better paid job elsewhere. Just over one in three (35.5%) full-time employees with service of 19 years or more with their current employer would move organisations if offered a better paid job compared with 45.8% of part-time workers with similar service. See Table 2.3.
• For workers with children, over one third (34.5%) would turn down the opportunity of a better paid job elsewhere, compared with less than three in ten (28.7%) of workers with no children. See Table 2.3.
• Employees most likely to leave their job within the next six months are those who are temporary or part-time or are only with their current employer for a short period. Temporary employees (24.3%) were more than twice as likely to leave their job within the next six months, compared with permanent workers (12.1%). Similarly, the likelihood of part-time employees with less than five years’ service leaving their job in the next six months was almost double that of full-time workers with similar service – 24.7% compared with 13.5% of full-time employees. See Table 2.4.
• Opportunities for promotion impact job satisfaction. Nearly six in ten (56.1%) employees who are not satisfied with their opportunities for promotion at work, would leave their job if offered a better paid job elsewhere. See Table 2.5.
• People in bad health are more likely to be dissatisfied with life. Over five in ten (55.1%) persons with bad health are not satisfied with their life – over four in ten (41.1%) in bad/very bad health are dissatisfied with life while a further one in seven (14%) were very unhappy with life as a whole. This compares with just one in twenty-five (4.4%) who were less than satisfied with life but in very good health. The majority (95.6%) of persons in very good health were very satisfied with their life. See Table 3.1.
• Over one quarter (26.3%) of workers found it hard to make ends meet. Part-time workers were nearly twice as likely to find it hard to make ends meet - 40.5% compared with over one in five full-time workers (22.6%). See Table 3.4.
• Just over one in eight (12.9%) persons currently not working said that they were caring for a dependent family member or friend, while one in nine (10.9%) said that they had childcare issues. One in fourteen (7%) said that there was no work available for them. See Table 4.1.

For further information see tables on PxStat