It’s already suspected that shift work is bad for your health, but lawyers say the trend for working nights and irregular hours is also cited as a factor in an increasing number of divorces.
The strain caused by variable and non-standard hours is exacerbated by the fact long periods spent in the company of co-workers make the workplace a potential hotbed of infidelity.
According to law firm Hall Brown, the proportion of divorce cases it handled involving shift work increased from seven- to thirty-five percent over the course of three years.
Senior Associate Claire Reid said that almost 80 percent of “shift work divorces” involved hints of infidelity.
“We have heard complaints that such arrangements can effectively mean living under the same roof but leading separate lives.
“That strain, of course, can be made even more acute when there are children to be cared for because it can prompt rows about whether a husband or wife is making more of an effort for the family.
“What has become increasingly clear, though, is that more marriages are breaking down not just because of the shifts but the extra-marital relationships formed while working them,” she said.
Rosie Schumm, a partner at Forsters law firm said shift workers often feel ostracised or guilty” because they feel unable to engage in a “normal” family life.
“Irregular hours make it difficult to plan ahead as a family – for example, booking holidays away.
“Prioritisation of work over family life due to economic necessity could lead to a chaotic and ad hoc lifestyle, which places additional strain on a couple and the family unit generally,” she said.
Other studies have found that working nights is connected to health conditions including obesity, diabetes and depression.
Academic research seems to back out the trend observed by the lawyers. In 2000, researchers in the USA found that among shift-working men with children, separation or divorce was six times more likely in the first five years of marriage than if they worked normal days.
The TUC Congress released information in October 2016 showing that one in eight employees now worked nights, with the number rising by a quarter-of-a-million since 2011 to 3.1m.
Unpredictable working patterns are increasingly common now too, with more UK workers on “zero hours” contracts which do not guarantee a set amount of work, or periods during which the employee definitely will, or will not, be working.
This so-called “gig economy”, which includes companies such as Deliveroo and Uber, allows workers to choose their own hours, often to fit around a day job or course.
Figures released earlier in 2017 show that 905,000 people were working zero-hours contracts at the end of 2016, up from 804,000 the year before. According to the Office of National Statistics, such workers are more likely to be young women.
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