Christians are more satisfied with their work-life balance

A new survey completed by Reventure Australia: Investing in Work Life Transformation of more than 1000 Australians has revealed that those who identify as church-going Christians experience greater work-life satisfaction than their colleagues.

The State of Work in Australia study was initiated by Reventure, a new organisation specialising in faith and work research, utilising the Barna Group, a globally recognised polling firm.

Christian workers are more satisfied with the balance they have in their life, with 36% saying they are very satisfied compared to just 22% of all workers.

“This is a significance difference,” explains Reventure Managing Director Dr Lindsay McMillan, “It is obviously an area where Christians are more thoughtful and planned, and something generally which they are concerned about.”

While further research would be needed to explain, the difference, it is clear that Christians have a belief that work is a gift from God, to be used in his service. Importantly, Christians also have a deep understanding of rest, enshrined in the Bible. In Genesis 2:2–3 it is recorded that God rested from the work he had done. This was enshrined in the Ten Commandments, as a way of honouring God (Exodus 20:8–11). Further, Jesus pointed out that the day of rest, the Sabbath, was also made for the good of humans (Mark 2:27).

Christian workers are also likely to be more positive about the overall direction of their work-life balance than their colleagues. Those ranking their work-life balance as having improved over the last two years were 35%, compared to only 28% for all workers.

“Feeling that work-life balance has improved is highly correlated with job satisfaction and also with lower frequency of high stress levels at work,” Dr McMillan said. “We are getting an overall picture of how these different measures link together, with Christian workers generally more balanced, more satisfied and less stressed than all workers.”

Details of the study:

• The study was conducted in April 2016 and consisted of a nationally-representative survey of 1,001 Australian employed adults with an oversample of church attenders with 321 identifying as church-going Christians.
• The study was representative of all major denominations.
• The sample was balanced for gender and age and included fulltime (57%), part-time (33%) and 10% self-employed/independent workers.
• The sample included a representation of workplace settings including 40% professional office workers, 12% working in retail, 11% working from home, 9% in education, 6% in a health setting.

For more information about Reventure Australia go to the website