Shocking: more work, less time with family
Workers on average spend 45 fewer minutes per day with family now than in 1986, since workers on average are working more now (than ever before; humans have never worked more hours per year than now, looking as far back as the middle ages).
Alarmingly, even "watching TV with a spouse" counted -- for the study's purposes -- as "family time". People only qualified for this study if they worked more than 3 hours per day and had at least one spouse or child (so all those single work-a-holics aren't included).
CBC
"In general, the more time spent in paid employment on a given day, the less time there is remaining to devote to family," Martin Turcotte, author of the study, writes. "However, other factors may considerably influence time with family members."
The study says these factors include spending more time watching television alone, eating alone and spending less time on family meals.
Based on a 260-day work year, the decline in family time amounts to 195 hours less a year, or about five 40-hour work weeks.
How much did we work?
On average, Canadians worked 536 minutes or 8.9 hours a day on a working day in 2005, an increase from 506 minutes or 8.4 hours 20 years earlier.
[..] in 1986, about 17 per cent of workers dedicated 10 hours or more to their work, and by 2005, this proportion had grown to 25 per cent.
That does not include commute times nor, as I pointed out above, the single work-a-holic male...