Why Work-Life Balance Feels Impossible, and What You Can Change
- The TUC calculates that 3.5 million UK employees worked unpaid overtime in 2025, averaging 6.8 hours a week each, worth £28.5 billion in total.
- In a Eurofound survey of 1,634 employees in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, more than 80% said they received work communications outside their contracted hours.
- Women in the UK spent 3 hours 37 minutes a day on unpaid work in 2023, compared with 2 hours 43 minutes for men, according to the Office for National Statistics.
- The 2021 Census counted 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK, and nearly 3 million of them also hold a paid job.
- Australia, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and several other countries have a legal right to disconnect. The UK and the US do not.
If you have read six articles on work-life balance, bought the planner, tried the 5am start and still end most days answering messages on the sofa, the likeliest explanation is not a lack of discipline. The week you are trying to balance may simply contain more than fits.
This piece looks at the evidence for that: how much unpaid work people do for their employers, how far work now reaches into the evening, how much unpaid work waits at home, and what the law does and does not do about it.
It ends with the part you can change, which is smaller than the wellness industry suggests and still worth having.
Is it you, or is it the set-up?
A quick test helps. Personal problems vary from person to person. Structural problems show up in national statistics. When a union body can count 3.5 million people doing the same unpaid thing in the same year, that is a feature of how work is organised, and no individual timetable will remove it.
The distinction matters because the two kinds of problem need different responses. A habit can replace a habit. A workload built for one and a half people needs a conversation, a contract change, a new job or a change in the law. Treating the second kind as the first is how people end up exhausted and blaming themselves for it.
Three structural pressures account for most of what readers describe. Each has decent data behind it.
How much work happens off the clock?
A great deal. The Trades Union Congress analyses the Labour Force Survey each year, and its figures for 2025 show 3.5 million UK employees working unpaid overtime. That is 11.9% of the workforce. Those who did it averaged 6.8 unpaid hours a week, which the TUC values at £8,100 a year per person and £28.5 billion across the economy.
The total was slightly lower than the year before, when it came to nearly £31 billion. It is still close to one extra working day a week, given away. The TUC is a campaigning organisation and picks its headline accordingly, but the underlying survey is the same official source the government uses for employment figures.
The law offers less protection than many people assume. In the UK, employers do not have to pay for overtime, provided your average pay across all hours stays at or above the minimum wage. The 48-hour weekly limit is an average, normally taken over 17 weeks, and you can sign it away.
In the US the Fair Labor Standards Act requires time and a half after 40 hours for covered, non-exempt employees. Salaried staff classed as exempt get nothing extra, and the Act states that there is no limit on the hours anyone aged 16 or over may work in a week. Federal law does not require paid vacation either.
Why can't you switch off in the evening?
Because the office is in your pocket, and somebody in it is still typing. Twenty years ago leaving the building ended the working day for most people. Now the same phone holds your family photos, your bank and your team chat, and the last of those lights up at 9.40pm.
Eurofound, the EU's research agency for working conditions, surveyed 1,634 employees in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain in December 2022.
More than 80% said they received work-related communications outside their contracted hours. Almost three-quarters were contacted by colleagues out of hours every day or on some days. Almost half regularly worked more hours than their contract said, most often to finish tasks they could not complete in the working day.
The same survey compared workplaces with and without a right-to-disconnect policy. Where a policy existed, 28% of workers reported stress or anxiety, against 38% where there was none. The share who said their hours fitted their family commitments was 92% and 80% respectively.
This is self-reported survey data from four countries, and companies that adopt such policies may differ in other ways, so read the gap as suggestive. It does point in one direction: the expectation set by the employer matters more than the willpower of the employee.
There is a quieter mechanism too. Every after-hours reply teaches your colleagues that after-hours messages get answered. Nobody decides this. It accumulates, one helpful response at a time, until the whole team is on call without anyone having agreed to it.
How much does the unpaid work at home add?
For many people the paid job is only the first shift. The Office for National Statistics' time use data for 2023 found that women spent an average of 3 hours 37 minutes a day on unpaid work such as cooking, cleaning, childcare and caring for adults. Men spent 2 hours 43 minutes.
The gap of 54 minutes a day has narrowed since 2020, when it was 1 hour 12 minutes, but it still adds up to more than six hours a week.
The US picture is similar. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey for 2025, 87% of women and 75% of men did some household activity on an average day. Women who did spent 2.8 hours on it and men 2.1.
In households with a child under six, women gave 2.8 hours a day to hands-on childcare and men 1.7. Men, meanwhile, had 5.6 hours of leisure a day to women's 4.8.
Caring for an ill, disabled or older relative comes on top. Carers UK, drawing on the 2021 Census, counts 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK. Of these, 59% are women and nearly 3 million are also in paid employment. The charity's own research estimates that 2.6 million people have given up work altogether to care, about 600 a day.
Legal support for working carers is thin in both countries. UK employees can take one week of unpaid carer's leave every 12 months from their first day in a job.
The US Family and Medical Leave Act gives up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave, but only to staff with 12 months' service at employers with 50 or more employees nearby. A week, or twelve, without pay does not go far against a parent's dementia.
Do you have a legal right to disconnect?
It depends where you live, and if you live in the UK or the US the answer is no.
| Country | What exists | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| France, Belgium, Italy, Spain | Specific legislation, passed before the pandemic | Employers must address after-hours contact, usually through company agreements or policies |
| Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia | Legislation passed after the growth of remote work in 2020 | Similar duties, with details varying by country |
| Ireland | A code of practice | Not a law in itself, but it sets the standard employers are expected to follow |
| Australia | A right in national employment law, extended to small businesses from 26 August 2025 | Employees may refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact outside working hours unless refusing is unreasonable |
| UK | Nothing in force | The government said in October 2024 it would introduce a "right to switch off" through a statutory code of practice. The Employment Rights Act 2025 does not contain one |
| US | No federal right | Federal law sets overtime pay for some workers and no cap on hours |
The European list comes from Eurofound, and the Australian rules from the Fair Work Ombudsman. The Australian version is carefully hedged. Whether a refusal is unreasonable depends on the reason for the contact, how disruptive it is, whether you are paid to be available, your role and your personal circumstances.
In the UK, the commitment appears in the government's Next Steps to Make Work Pay paper of October 2024. Acas's summary of the Employment Rights Act 2025 lists changes to flexible working and zero-hours contracts due in 2027, and no right to disconnect. At the time of writing no code has been published.
A sceptical note for anyone tempted to move to Lyon. Eurofound found that 60% of teleworking employees in France still had no formal right to disconnect in 2021, several years after the law passed. In Spain only one employee in three said the right was recognised where they worked.
A law changes what you can point to in an argument. It does not change a team's habits on its own.
What is within your control?
Less than the self-help shelf implies, and more than nothing. The table separates the two honestly.
| Cause | Outside your control | Within your control |
|---|---|---|
| Unpaid overtime | Staffing levels, targets, how your role is classified | Keeping a two-week log of actual hours and taking it to your manager with a specific request |
| After-hours messages | Other people's sending habits, time zones, company culture | Asking what response time is expected out of hours, then setting notifications to match the answer |
| Housework and childcare | Childcare costs, school hours, how many adults are in the home | Listing every recurring task, including the planning, and dividing the list with your partner by whole tasks |
| Caring for a relative | The relative's condition, local care services, leave law | Telling your employer, asking about carer's leave and flexible hours, and contacting a carers' charity early |
Log the hours before you raise them
"I'm swamped" is easy to wave away. "I worked 47, 49 and 46 hours in the last three weeks against a contract of 37.5, and these four tasks caused it" is a different conversation. Two weeks of honest notes is enough. Finish with one concrete request: drop a task, move a deadline, or share a duty.
Ask the question nobody asks
Most teams have never stated what they expect out of hours, so everyone assumes the worst. Ask your manager directly: "If something arrives after six, when do you need a reply?" The usual answer is "tomorrow is fine", and once said aloud it can be acted on. Where the answer is "straight away", you have learnt something important about the job.
Divide tasks at home by ownership
Helping with a task leaves the remembering with the other person. Owning it means you notice the washing powder is low, buy it, and do the wash. Write the full list of recurring jobs, including the invisible ones such as school forms and birthday presents, and split them so that each has one owner from start to finish.
Use the rights you do have
Employees in Great Britain can request flexible working from day one. Our practical guide to improving work-life balance explains how, along with a framework for setting the edges of your day and the sentences to use when they are tested.
After all that, if the numbers still do not add up, the conclusion may be that this job at this stage of your life cannot be balanced. That is a finding, not a failure, and it is a better basis for a decision than another year of trying harder.
When should you get help?
Speak to someone if any of this applies
If long hours are affecting your sleep, mood or physical health for more than a couple of weeks, book a GP appointment or contact NHS 111 in the UK, or see your doctor in the US.
If you feel unable to keep yourself safe, call 999 or 911. Samaritans answer on 116 123 in the UK at any hour, and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline takes calls and texts in the US.
For questions about hours, pay or a flexible working request, Acas gives free advice in Great Britain and the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division does the same in the US. A union rep, if you have one, is often the fastest route.
Our guide to stress overload and burnout covers the World Health Organization's definition of burnout, the latest UK and US stress figures and the signs to watch for.
Questions readers ask
Is work-life balance a myth?
A perfect, permanent balance is, yes. Weeks vary. What is achievable for most people is a default week with a bounded amount of work in it, which you return to after busy spells. When that default is out of reach for months, the cause is usually workload or caring responsibilities, and the answer lies there.
Can my employer make me answer emails outside working hours?
In the UK and the US there is no general legal right to ignore out-of-hours contact, so it depends on your contract and what is reasonable for your role. UK workers are covered by the 48-hour average weekly limit unless they have opted out, and time spent working counts towards it. Check your contract, then ask your manager.
Why is work-life balance harder for women?
On average women do more unpaid work. ONS data for 2023 shows a gap of 54 minutes a day in the UK, and US time use data shows a similar pattern in housework and childcare. Women also make up 59% of unpaid carers in the UK. The paid job is the same length, but the total working day is longer.
Would a four-day week solve it?
It would help some people. Fewer paid days only help if the workload shrinks with them, and they do nothing about caring responsibilities or after-hours messages. If your employer is open to it, a formal flexible working request is the route in Great Britain. Compressed hours, where five days are squeezed into four, suit fewer people than they expect.
Sources
- Trades Union Congress. UK workers put in £28 billion in unpaid overtime in the last year. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey. 27 February 2026.
- Eurofound. Right to disconnect: implementation and impact at company level. 2023. Employee survey, December 2022.
- Eurofound. Do we really have the right to disconnect? 2022.
- Office for National Statistics. Time use in the UK: 23 September to 1 October 2023. 9 November 2023.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics. American Time Use Survey: 2025 results. 25 June 2026.
- Carers UK. Key facts and figures about caring. Accessed September 2026.
- Fair Work Ombudsman (Australia). Right to disconnect. Accessed September 2026.
- GOV.UK. Next Steps to Make Work Pay, 10 October 2024; Overtime: your rights; Maximum weekly working hours; Unpaid carer's leave. Accessed September 2026. Acas. Employment Rights Act 2025.
- US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act; Vacation leave; Family and Medical Leave Act. Accessed September 2026.
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