Weekend Work and Leisure Time with Spouse, Children, and Friends: Who Misses Out?

We explore links between weekend work and leisure time shared with partners, children, other resident and non-resident family, and friends, using the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006 (n>4,000 households). Drawing a sample of employed persons (n=3903) we test associations between weekend work and shared leisure time on the day of work and also, to see if shared leisure time is made up on other days, over the following weekdays. We stratify analyses by family type, specifically i) couples with no minor children, ii) couples with minor children and iii) singles with no minor children. For all groups, weekend work is associated with significantly less shared leisure time on days worked.  Results suggest some weekend workers recoup some forms of shared leisure time over the following week (particularly time with friends by men in couple families) but most do not. Indeed for some categories of shared leisure, notably with partners and with children, there were further negative associations on weekdays. There were gender differences in amount of shared leisure, but interaction terms showed that all else equal, in families with children, weekend work limits fathers and mothers leisure shared with spouse and with children to a similar extent. We conclude that it is families with young children who are most affected by weekend work, especially Sunday work, and most especially when weekend shifts are combined with long weekly work hours.