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People are bringing work home with them regularly.  

About half of adults find work invading their home lives, says a study from the University of Toronto which examined the lifestyle habits of 1,800 American workers. The national survey included questions like "How often does your job interfere with your home or family life?"; "How often does your job interfere with your social or leisure activities?"; and "How often do you think about things going on at work when you are not working?" Sociology professor Scott Schieman of UT, and his coauthors Melissa Milkie of the University of Maryland and PhD student Paul Glavin, also of UT, found that 50 percent of participants responded "sometimes" or "frequently" to these questions, putting themselves at a greater risk of health problems, Schieman says. 

Schieman, who is a sociology professor, studies the sociological constructs that influence stress and affect our health, "so the interface between work and home is a natural arena for this kind of analysis," he says. "Given the frequency of this stressor, it is really important to assess it empirically. Often, we find things that people might see as 'obvious'--but often there are patterns that are less expected. We found that in this study."

Most surprising, he says, is the finding that reveals that people who are well-educated, in positions of authority, and have job-related resources are more likely to find that work interferes with personal time. People with college or post-graduate degrees are more likely to experience work encroachment on home time than those with high-school degrees, as do professionals, more than workers in other categories. Schieman and his colleagues call this the "stress of higher status."

The stress of higher status will not necessarily mitigate the health advantages that people of a higher SES enjoy, Schieman maintains. "This is an important pattern because it shows that higher SES (education, income, professional occupation) report more of a stressor (work-nonwork interference), that in turn can undermine health," he contends. "So, it suggests a pattern that goes against the grain of research about SES-based inequality in health. Were it not for this higher level of stress (the stress of higher status), we might see an even wider SES-based disparity in health."

The workers who should have the most control over their timing and schedules found it hardest to keep work from invading their leisure time. Why? 

"We think it might have something to do with the blurring of the borders between work and nonwork life," Schieman says. "When people control their start/end times of work, they may start working in places outside of the actual workplace--often at home. By definition, the borders between work and nonwork life are blurred...and this can cause conflicts, interference, and so on."

While the study did not assess whether the poor economy has affected the work/home balance, Schieman says it is likely that the additional stress of the tough job market has done so.

"It is likely that when the job market becomes more insecure and many are looking for work, the workers who remain on the job may experience work intensification: more work, less time to do it, sometimes dealing with tasks that someone else used to do--but isn't employed any longer, and so on," he explains. "Also, economic hardship or financial strain is a stressor that can compound the stressors associated with work-family conflict. And, finally, job insecurity is a chronic strain that makes demands and pressures cut a little sharper. People may be willing to let work become greedier when they perceive that they could be out of work, especially if they see it all around them in their community or in the media."

Were men or women more likely to allow work to come home with them? While there were no significant sex differences overall, Schieman and his team did find differences between workers of different ages related to gender.

"We did find that the age differences in levels of work-nonwork interference differed by gender," he explains. "Average levels rise across age and peak around 45-55 for men and then decline dramatically; by contrast, average levels of interference rise quicker for women and peak at around 35-44, but then also  decline dramatically after age 50 or so."

Bringing work home can cause serious health issues, Schieman warns. It is important that people learn to manage the steady stream of stress involved in an unbalanced work/home existence. "It creates a form of role stress that has been linked to an array of negative physical and mental health outcomes (distress, and so on)," he says. "The more frequently it occurs, the more it takes a toll on functioning--especially if people feel like they can't control the pace of their own work. The pressures involved take a toll."