Maori work-life balance leads world

Two-thirds of Maori full-time workers in a study rated their work-life balance as above average. Photo / File

Maori fulltime workers feel they have better work-life balance than workers in six other cultures globally, a new study has found.

Two-thirds of Maori workers in the study rated their work-life balance as above average, higher than NZ Europeans and workers in China, Malaysia, France, Italy and Spain.

However lead author Professor Jarrod Haar said Maori rated their work-life balance highly because their "collectivist" culture placed a high value on providing for the family, even if that meant working long hours.

In contrast, NZ Europeans were the most "individualistic" culture in the study.
"For an individualist, you and I work 15 hours and are exhausted and think this is terrible," Dr Haar said.

"But for collectivists like Maori and Chinese, working long hours is a way of showing your commitment to the family, and the family doesn't resent those long hours because it does provide those additional benefits when someone is working."

The study measured work-life balance by self-rated scores agreeing with statements such as, "I manage to balance the demands of my work and personal/family life well."

It drew on previous studies to rate its seven cultures on an individualist/collectivist scale which rates NZ Europeans as the most individualistic and Chinese as the most collectivist. Malaysian culture was also rated as collectivist, while all the European cultures were more individualist.

There were no previous ratings on this scale for Maori but Dr Haar gave it the same rating as Chinese on the basis of previous findings that Maori have "a strong collectivist culture".

He found that in individualistic cultures people with higher self-rated work-life balance also had higher life satisfaction, but that the reverse applied in collectivist cultures - people there with higher self-rated work-life balance were actually less satisfied with their lives than people with lower work-life balance.42

The study suggests that work-life balance is more important to individualists because "it is considered more essential in individualistic societies to live one's life to the fullest and to recover from the stress and strains associated with work roles."

Dr Haar himself is of Ngati Maniapoto and Ngati Mahuta descent, as well as having German ancestors on his father's side and Scottish and Irish forebears on his mother's side. He works long hours and enjoys it.

"I do work long hours and I have to say part of that is the joy of my job," he said.
He and his partner each share care of their children with previous partners, living part of the week in Auckland with his partner's two children and the other part in Hamilton with Dr Haar's teenage son. He also has a 7-year-old son every second weekend.

"At least I'm working from home in the weekends, and when my son says can we go to the park, it's easy to do that and then come back and do a bit more work," he said.

He said the sample of 366 Maori workers in the study was found by a "snowball" technique, starting with people he knew, and was more educated and better paid than the average.

Above-average work-life balance:

Maori - 67%
Malaysia - 59%
NZ European - 58%
Spain - 58%
China - 56%
France - 46%
Italy - 42%

Above-average life satisfaction

Maori - 81%
Spain - 68%
France - 60%
NZ European - 59%
Malaysia - 54%
China - 49%
Italy - 49%