996 culture catching up in India, shows Godrej Interio survey

When spending quality time with family and friends, more than one in three (34%) of Indian working professionals are not able to dedicate enough time to their children due to work pressure, finds a survey by Godrej called 'Make Space For Life'. The study also finds that most Indians acknowledged the failure to find balance and time for their family, friends and passion.

The findings also indicate that the 996 culture is slowly catching up in India. The number refers to working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week and is said to be common among China's big technology companies and startups. "Today's working professionals are losing out significantly on creating strong family ties or spending quality time with friends, due to the pressures of demanding work lives. As opposed to the belief that technology is a facilitator, new-age technology plays an important role in the escalation of this trend," said Anil Mathur, chief operating officer, Godrej Interio. "Such insights also reflect the work-life balance dynamics in the lives of Indians," he added.

The study revealed that due to work pressure, more than 64% of respondents feel that they are not able to dedicate enough time to their family whereas 28% are not able to spend quality time with their spouse. Similarly, 21.2% and 16.2 % of the respondents feel that they are not able to dedicate enough time to their friends and parents respectively. It showed that 61% of respondents do not have time to spend on their passions and as many people feel that they are not able to dedicate enough time to their passion due to family responsibilities.

Alarmingly, more than 56.7% of respondents rate their work-life balance as terrible with 68.2% feeling that they miss out on living life on their terms, and 56.5% of respondents feel that they are not able to dedicate enough time to their passion due to their professional life. The survey was conducted among 1,300 people living across 13 cities including Chandigarh, Mumbai, Jaipur, Coimbatore, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Delhi, and Bengaluru.