A Life's Work

We live in a 24/7 economy and whether you are a nurse on the night shift, a stockbroker getting up early to be abreast of the markets in Asia, a fast food server feeding pub leavers at closing time or a supermarket worker stacking shelves before the shopping hoards arrive, you know what that's like and how it impacts on your family life.

For millions of people in the UK and around the world, work is no 9 to 5 matter. In fact, with more than 50 per cent of us working what we we have tended to think of as a 'non standard' schedule, seems to be becoming the 'standard schedule'.

In the UK, nearly a quarter of working mums and a third of working dads do some sort of shift work. But how does this affect their ability to lead healthy happy lives not just as individuals, but as a family?

A Life's Work is a podcast seeking to answer that question by exploring the latest evidence around shift work and how it affects family life.

In our first series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, researcher Afshin Zilanawala, a researcher at the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL explores what we know about shift work and how it impacts on mums, dads and their children, especially their health and happiness.