Canadian parents are the 4th worst in the world for work-life balance: report

If you’re frantically attempting to finish workday tasks while trying to figure out dinner plans and almost forgot your kids have soccer practice today, a new report out of the UK may sound all-too familiar.

The report from Expert Market, a UK-based business-to-business comparison site, found that the work-life balance of Canadian parents is less than ideal.

In fact, Canada ranked fourth worst in the category.

In creating the report and ranking the countries, Expert Market looked at four key factors:

1. Average annual hours worked by parents;
2. The number of paid annual leave working days permitted by law in each country;
3. Total paid leave available to mothers;
4. Total paid leave reserved for fathers for a total of 37 countries.

“The way we work has completely transformed in recent years and work-life balance has become increasingly important,” said Adelle Kehoe a spokesperson with Expert Market. “Our research clearly shows which countries are future-proofing their infrastructures and those that risk being left behind.”

Northern European countries rank highest, US ranks lowest

As for which countries seemed to have positively tapped into the work-life balance well, Northern European neighbours Finland and Estonia are the top two countries respectively.

Finland secured first place scoring excellently on paid annual leave allowances and Estonia came in second with the best result for paid leave available to mothers – 85 weeks at full-rate pay.

Despite being one of the world’s most developed nations, the United States scored the worst of all the OECD countries.

The report said failure by the US to “provide any statutory paid leave to mothers or fathers, paired with the nation’s ‘Fair Labour Standards Act’, which does not require employers to pay workers for any annual leave whatsoever means that, in terms of parents’ work-life balance, the United States remains leagues behind other established
western powers.”

All told, the 10 worst countries for work-life balance of parents are:

1. USA
2. Mexico
3. Costa Rica
4. Canada
5. Chile
6. Israel
7. Turkey
8. Ireland
9. New Zealand
10. Switzerland

The 10 best countries to find a good work-life balance asa parent are:

1. Finland
2. Estonia
3. Austria
4. France
5. Germany
6. Sweden
7. Japan
8. Norway
9. Luxemborg
10. Slovak Republic