Boys whose fathers work long hours may be more likely to have behavioural problems, a new study indicates.

Nowadays, many parents work long hours. Australian scientists decided to investigate this issue further. Currently in Australia, around one in five fathers work 55 hours or more when their children are five years of age, while a similar number work this long when their children are eight years old.

The scientists looked at over 1,400 children and found that boys whose fathers worked 55 hours or more each week were much more likely to go on to display aggressive and delinquent behaviour compared to boys whose fathers worked less hours.

These long working hours did not appear to affect the men's daughters.

The scientists noted that the working hours of mothers also did not appear to have an effect, however they pointed out that few of the mothers in this study worked long hours.

They said that this is an issue that should be carefully considered because economic pressures have led to long working hours becoming more commonplace.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of Marriage and Family.