Are you a workaholic? You’re not alone!

A newly-released study from Statistics Canada found one third of Canadians consider themselves workaholics. But workaholics don’t appear to have more fun or money.

As you might expect, these workaholics also say they are less happy with the balance between their work and family time, compared to their non-workaholic colleagues. The self-identified workaholics also don’t appear to be making more money, don’t seem to like their jobs any more than others, and report being in worse health, with trouble sleeping. Go figure.

    The study was published in the May online edition of Canadian Social Trends, and used data from the 2005 General Social Survey (GSS). The researchers say they measured quality of life using three criteria: balance between work and family time, time pressure and general life satisfaction.

Despite the perception that more of us are working longer hours and harder, the study found that about one-third (31 per cent) of working Canadians aged 19 to 64 identified themselves as workaholics, and this proportion has not changed since the GSS started collecting these figures 15 years ago.

There don’t appear to be many pluses for workaholics, as 65 per cent worry they don’t spend enough time with family and friends (much higher than the 45 per cent of non-workaholics); on a 10 point scale, their job satisfaction was 7.4 the same as the non-workaholics; and more than half (56 per cent) say they didn’t have much time for fun.

The study did find that workaholics appear to recognize they have trouble using their time effectively, as they were more likely to feel rushed, trapped in a daily routine, and unable to accomplish what they set out to do.
They were more likely than non-workaholics to feel rushed, trapped in a daily routine, and unable to accomplish what they set out to do at the beginning of the day.

Too much work could be cutting into their fun time, as more than half (56 per cent) say they didn’t have time for fun, which is much higher than the (34 per cent) of non-workaholics who felt that way.

So, work less, live more!