Shift work and health in the Norwegian Petroleum sector: Employees' Work-Personal Life integration a PhD-project

Recent years an increasing concern regarding how to balance work and family for both husbands and wives in all sectors of society, and the reconciling of work and family have been on the social and political agenda. Working time arrangements play an impor tant factor here. The petroleum sector is special with the high amount of activity off-shore in remote locations in the sea, giving working schedules adjusted to these special conditions. The usual working schedule at the Norwegian shelf is 14 days offsho re followed by 28 days restoration period. Similar working schedules are found on-shore (12:9 or 14:21). Within these working schedules, different rotation types are used, giving variation in different needs for recovery due to the very intense working pe riods and the ability to recover between working shifts. The main objective is to explore the work experiences of onshore/off-shore employees in the Norwegian petroleum-industry and their families in the transition from shift work off-shore/on-shore to th e off-work situation and everyday family-life. The need for recovery after the working period, the ability for recovery given within the family situation and arrangements encouraging the employee and his/her family to cope with the family situation in rel ation to the specific work situation will be in focus. The study is designed with an explorative approach using a combination of a diary study among offshore and onshore employees with a short daily questionnaire answered from the start of the off-work pe riod until 2 weeks within the off-work period and a qualitative interview with the employee and his/her partner/spouse. The interview will be based on semi-structured interview guide. A differentiated study sample will be choosen for the study. This appli cation is an additional funding for the projectnumber 183214, e.g a funding for a three year doctorial fellowship from January 2009 to december 2011.