How To Improve Your Work-Life Balance

Most working mothers feel stretched in all directions, struggling to keep up with the demands of family, job and home. At last, employers and the Government have recognised that women need more flexibility to combine work with parenting, and various solutions are being offered to help. But do they make things better?

Going part-time sounds like the perfect solution: reduce your work day by a couple of hours and you'll have more time to play with the kids or catch up with chores. It's so brilliantly simple that some 5.78 million women now work part-time.

Here comes the reality check, though. Reducing your hours means you'll earn less - and not necessarily just in proportion to the hours you've dropped. According to a survey by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), 65% of part-time workers in the Civil Service earn an average of £3,000 less pro-rata than full-time workers. You could also be up against some less-than- supportive colleagues - PCS research shows that, across all professions, one in four people thought part-time workers were less committed to their jobs. As for career growth, you can probably kiss goodbye to promotion.

And stress? The irony is that there'll still be plenty of it, as you struggle to squeeze a working week into fewer hours. As psychology professor Cary Cooper points out, many women are so grateful for being allowed to work part-time that they put in longer hours to show their dedication. "Women end up working three-quarter-time with none of the benefits. Unless you can easily leave your work behind at the end of the day, your stress levels will increase because you'll never feel on top of your job," says Cooper.

Other ways to address the problem of balancing work and home lives have been suggested. Four years ago, the Government set up the Work- Life Balance campaign to encourage employers to adopt flexible working patterns.

. Flexitime, job sharing, term-time working, staggered hours, self-rostering, shift working and time off in lieu were all up for grabs in the new Utopian workplace. Great in theory, but in practice...?

A Maternity Alliance survey shows two-thirds of parents are able to work flexibly or reach a compromise - but a quarter of them say they've lost out, either financially or through demotion, while only a quarter feel their new arrangement is going well (increased workload is a common complaint ). For those whose request was refused, many employers failed to give a reason. So much for giving workers what they want! But is it any surprise when the Government continues to opt out of the European Working Time Directive, with its 48-hour maximum working week?

What's needed is a radical change in attitude and a better understanding of what working women need to achieve a balanced lifestyle. Until then, it's up to us to make the best of it. It's vital we take a long, hard look at what we really want - be it part- time, a break or home working.