The other side of the ‘family-friendly workplace’ story is that it is all a big lie, according to Paul Bibby, the Sydney Morning Herald’s workplace reporter.

In a recent article, Bibby explored the notion that working hours are becoming more family-friendly and suggested it was a myth.

He cited figures in a new Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report which suggest, rather scarily, that Australian workers have less opportunity to negotiate flexible work arrangements than they did the best part of a decade ago.

Repeated promises of greater flexibility for working families were a characteristic of both the former Howard government’s Work Choices policies and Labor’s Fair Work alternative, Bibby said, but the ABS data showed that the proportion of workers with any choice over their hours has remained stubbornly low.

The ABS figures highlight the fact that less than 40 per cent of full-time workers have any choice over the times they start and finish and less than half have the option of working extra hours now to get more time off at a later date.

“Both statistics have remained virtually unchanged through the industrial upheavals of the past decade, as has the proportion of workers with no choice over when to take their holidays - stagnant at about 30 per cent,” Bibby said.

The ABS figures also showed that in the three years to last November, the number of workers who negotiated an agreement for flexible hours with the boss - either formally or informally - fell from 40 per cent to about 30 per cent.

The ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, said the figures showed Australia had gone backwards. "These figures are a shocking reminder of the power our economy has over people's lives,'' Ms Burrow said. ''They show the enormous difficulty Australians have managing work and family life.''

Australia’s 2 million casual workers – the pool from which much of the working carer population is drawn – were the worst off, according to the figures.

A large proportion of casual employees were in limbo from week to week about how many hours they would be given. Nearly 60 per cent reported that they had no say in how many hours they worked and more than half did not have a guaranteed minimum number of hours. Forty-nine per cent reported they did not receive casual loading.

Ian Campbell, a senior researcher at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, said this situation made life extremely difficult for parents who were trying to balance part-time or casual work with raising a family.

It also makes life extremely stressful and uncertain for the nation’s part-time workers who also have a dual caring role.

''The quality of part-time and casual work in this country is scandalous,'' Mr Campbell said.

''I can't think of any other industrialised country that offers such poor conditions for part-time workers. People want and need part-time work to have a family - to have one in such circumstances must be incredibly difficult.''