Over 90 pct of working fathers in Taiwan under pressure: survey

TAIPEI - About 94 percent of the working fathers in Taiwan are under physical and psychological pressure with almost 30 percent saying the pressures are "unbearable," according to a survey released by job website Yes123 ahead of Father's Day, which falls on Aug 8 in Taiwan each year.

Fathers in Taiwan work 10 hours a day on average and up to 21.3 percent said they work over 12 hours a day, showed the survey, which covered 1,176 of the website's working male members who have children.

The respondents said they have not seen any pay rise for an average of 3.6 years and about 85 percent said they are not satisfied with their current salaries. About 37.1 percent said they are the only breadwinners in their families.

The survey also showed about half of the interviewees said they are under a similar amount of pressure from family and career while three-quarters said they cannot handle both their job and family for the time being.

On work days, working fathers in Taiwan can only spend slightly over an hour each day with their children, and they can only have dinner with their children on 2.9 days a week on average, it showed.

In addition, 77 percent of those surveyed said they are worried about losing their jobs when they are middle-aged. The main reasons for concern include insufficient professional skills, disadvantages of age and foreign language proficiency.

Yang Tsung-pin, spokesperson of the website, said working fathers worry that working hours and pressures from work can lead to imbalances between family and career and even affect their relationships with their children.

"If they unfortunately experience long-time pay freezes, economic pressures will follow them like their shadows due to high living expenses and housing and car mortgages," Yang said.