Working Time and Work Intensity in Portuguese Courts Table 2. Working time indicators applied to Portuguese judicial professions (Judicial District Courts) Dimension Duration Statement You have to work extra hours to meet the required deadlines* Atypical working time Working time arrangements Flexibility You have to work on the weekend to meet the required deadlines* You can take a break whenever you want*/*** The time you must devote to your job keeps you from participating equally in household responsibilities and activities** You have to miss family activities due to the amount of time you must spend on work responsibilities** Mean 3.43 Standard deviation 1.17 2.80 1.29 3.74 1.03 3.60 1.13 3.17 1.19 * Likert-type frequency response scale from 1 " never " to 5 " always. " ** Likert-type agreement response scale from 1 " strongly disagree " to 5 " strongly agree. " *** The value of this statement was reversed for index construction. The interviewees' responses reveal not only a strongly work-centered reality experienced by judicial professionals and its overwhelming effects on other aspects of life, but also a discourse that normalizes the dominance of work over life. As already pointed out by other studies,52 the following excerpt illustrates a rhetoric in which high demands in terms of working hours are understood as something that " comes with the job. " High demands are, thus, to be expected and they require of judicial professionals the capacity to deal with them. 52. Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, " Managing Work and Family in the Judiciary: Metaphors and Strategies, " Flinders Law Journal, 18 (2), 2016, p. 213-239. DOI : 10.3316/650680433533199. Droit et Société 118/2024 ■ 563