Aussie women feel strain of full-time work

Here's a quick summary of the key stats from today's launch of the 2009 Australian Work and Life Index...

* One third of all full-time women would like to work part-time.

* This preference is stronger amongst full-timers who are mothers, with 38.7 per cent of all full-time working mothers reporting they would like to work part-time. But over a quarter of women without children also want to shift to part-time hours.

* Women are questioning full-time work. The conditions of full-time work, and the fact they are juggling most of the home duties as well, is really tough on women.

* Women working full-time are most likely to report frequent work-life pressures and poor work-life interaction than any other employee group.

* 29.1 per cent of full-time working women are feeling under pressure, with work often or almost always interfering with life outside of work. (This has increased from 18.4 per cent in 2007.)

* Time with family and friends is especially squeezed for full-time working women – a third say they often or always find that work restricts their time with family and friends.

* Women working full-time would like to reduce their working hours from an average of 43.2 hours per week to 36.3 hours (almost a full day less at work).

* Three quarters of women working more than 48 hours a week would like to work less (the figure is 67.1 per cent in men).

* Women working 35 to 47 hours want to work less too – 38.8 per cent of these workers would like to work fewer hours.

* Almost half of all full-time women would like to work fewer hours, while around a third of full-time men would like to as well.