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Working Moms: Happy or Haggard?

Psychologists from around the world look at whether working mothers' multiple roles place inordinate stress on them.

Does having a job as well as a home and a family enhance a woman's health or threaten it? Research on the question is sparse and contradictory.

Research in the area has pointed to two competing hypotheses, according to participant Nancy L. Marshall, EdD, of Wellesley College's Center for Research on Women.

One, the "scarcity hypothesis," presumes that people have a limited amount of time and energy and that women with competing demands suffer from overload and inter-role conflict.

The other, the "enhancement hypothesis," theorizes that the greater self-esteem and social support people gain from multiple roles outweigh the costs. Marshall's own research supports both notions.

Citing results from two studies she recently conducted, she explained that having children gives working women a mental and emotional boost that childless women lack. But having children also increases work and family strain, indirectly increasing depressive symptoms, she found.

The reason multiple roles can be both positive and negative has to do with traditional gender roles, agreed the experts who spoke at the session. Despite women's movement into the paid labor force, they still have primary responsibility for the "second shift" - household work and child care.

Workload scale

To study the area further, Ulf Lundberg, PhD, professor of biological psychology at the University of Stockholm, developed a "total workload scale." Using the scale, he has found that women typically spend much more time working at paid and unpaid tasks than men.

Lundberg also found that age and occupational level don't make much difference in terms of women's total workload. What does matter is whether they have children. In families without children, men and women both work about 60 hours a week.

But, said Lundberg, "as soon as there is a child in the family, total workload increases rapidly for women." In a family with three or more children, women typically spend 90 hours a week in paid and unpaid work, while men typically spend only 60.

Women can't look forward to relaxing during evenings or weekends, either. That's because women have a harder time than men unwinding physiologically once they're home.

"Women's stress is determined by the interaction of conditions at home and at work, whereas men respond more selectively to situations at work," explained Lundberg, adding that men seem to be able to relax more easily once they get home.

His research found that mothers who put in overtime at their paid jobs had more stress_as measured by epinephrine levels_over the weekend than fathers, even though the fathers had worked more overtime at their jobs.

These findings come as no surprise to Gary W. Evans, PhD, of Cornell University's Department of Design and Environmental Analysis. He believes that stresses on women are cumulative rather than additive_that home and work stressors combine to put women at risk. While some models conceptualize stress as additive, research he's done on stress suggests that woman can't put out one fire and move on to the next without suffering from stressful overload.

Evans also emphasized that simply coping with stress takes a toll on women's well-being.

"There's a tendency to put coping in a positive light," he noted. "There are costs of coping, however. When we cope with a stressor, especially one that is incessant or difficult to control, our ability to cope with subsequent environmental demands can be impaired."

The social support solution

The debate about women's multiple roles could be rendered obsolete by changes in societal expectations, many experts in the field believe.

"Individual decisions about work and family take place in a social and cultural context," said Gunn Johansson, PhD, professor of work psychology at the University of Stockholm. "Society sends encouraging or discouraging signals about an individual's choices and about the feasibility of combining work and family."

According to Johansson, these signals come not only in the form of equal employment opportunity laws, but also in the support society makes available to families. A researcher in her department, for instance, compared the plight of women managers in Sweden and the former West Germany. Although the two societies are quite similar, they differ in one important respect: Sweden offers high-quality child care to almost every family that requests it.

Preliminary results from the study are striking. In Sweden, most of the women managers had at least two children and sometimes more; in Germany, most were single women with no children.

"These women were reading the signals from their society," Johansson said. While the German women recognized that they had to forsake family for work, the Swedish women took it as their right to combine the two roles.

"In my optimistic moments," Johansson added, "I hope that this research might provide information that would prompt politicians to provide opportunities for both women and men. Women need to feel that they have a real choice when it comes to balancing work and family life."

Doing More and More With Less and Less

You haven't seen the bottom of your in-box in months.

You've gone from 9-to-5 to 8-to-7 -- and that's on a easy day.

In short, you've got too much to do with too few resources and not enough patience to deal with the stress that's building in you every day.

You're not alone.

In recent insurance industry studies, nearly half of North American workers say their job is "very or extremely stressful" and 27 percent said their job was the greatest source of stress in their life.

More specifically, a study by the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company found that 53 percent of supervisors and 34 percent of non-supervisors consider their jobs highly stressful.

The following tips can help you cut down on your workload -- and your stress:

Some national studies suggest that, on average, corporations lose about 16 days annually in productivity per worker due to stress, anxiety and depression.

Researchers find that employees are "emotionally drained" and "burned out" at the end of the day. One primary cause of those feelings is working too much or taking on more responsibility than one can handle.

Wanting to do more for the office team is an honorable goal. But when you take on too much and start to slip -- you should step back and examine what you're doing.

There are ways to handle stress and your workload before they get the best of you -- and that's the one thing you always want to contribute to your job.

Children and Television Violence

Violence on television affects children negatively, according to psychological research.

The three major effects of seeing violence on television are: 

Studies by George Gerbner, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania, have shown that children's television shows contain about 20 violent acts each hour and also that children who watch a lot of television are more likely to think that the world is a mean and dangerous place.

Children often behave differently after they've been watching violent programs on television. In one study done at Pennsylvania State University, about 100 preschool children were observed both before and after watching television; some watched cartoons that had many aggressive and violent acts; others watched shows that didn't have any kind of violence. The researchers noticed real differences between the kids who watched the violent shows and those who watched nonviolent ones.

Children who watched the violent shows were more likely to strike out at playmates, argue, disobey authority and were less willing to wait for things than those children who watched nonviolent programs.

Field studies by Leonard Eron, Ph.D. and his associates at the University of Illinois, found that children who watched many hours of television violence when they were in elementary school tended to also show a higher level of aggressive behavior when they became teenagers. By observing these youngsters until they were 30 years old, Dr. Eron found that the ones who'd watched a lot of television when they were eight years old were more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults.

Questionable Influences

For most of television's early years, it was difficult to find role models who would inspire young girls in the viewing audience.

In the mid-1970s, a new genre of programs such as "Charlie's Angels," "Wonder Woman," and "The Bionic Woman" entered the scene.

Now, there were females on television who were in control, aggressive and were not dependent upon males for their success.

Conventional wisdom might suggest this phenomena would have a positive impact on younger female viewers. But, a recent study by L. Rowell Huesmann, Ph.D. -- a psychologist at the Aggression Research Group at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research -- refutes that premise.

Huesmann's research states that young girls who often watched shows featuring aggressive heroines in the 1970s have grown up to be more aggressive adults involved in more confrontations, shoving matches, chokings and knife fights than women who had watched few or none of these shows.

One example cited by Huesmann is that 59 percent of those who watched an above-average amount of violence on television as children were involved in more than the average number of such aggressive incidents later in life.

Huesmann says that ages six to eight are very delicate and critical years in the development of children. Youngsters are learning "scripts" for social behavior that will last them throughout their life.

Huesmann found those "scripts" didn't always have happy endings.

In the onset of his research -- which took place between 1977 and 1979 -- Huesmann asked 384 girls in the first through fifth-grades in Oak Park, Ill. about their viewing habits.

In his follow-up between 1992 and 1995, he tracked down 221 of the original subjects and collected information on their life histories. Huesmann had subjects enter responses into a computer and as an accuracy check, Huesmann got information about each subject from a close friend or spouse.

What Is Being Done About The Problem

The television industry took steps toward implementing a ratings system for its programming at a meeting with President Clinton in late February.

The policy is to develop a ratings system for television programs that will give parents an indication of content not suitable for children.

The rating system may use letter codes (such as PG-7 for programs deemed suitable for children aged 7 and up, PG-10, PG-15, etc.), or the television industry may develop a short description of content which would be broadcast prior to the program.

Unlike the Motion Picture Association of America, which uses an independent third-party board to rate films, television networks will rate their own programs.

"I agree with President Clinton's and the industry's decision to promote some sort of ratings system and the use of the V-chip," said Dorothy Cantor, PsyD, former president of the American Psychological Association. "We live in an era where both parents are often working and children have more unsupervised time. Parents need help in monitoring the amount of television and the quality of what kids watch while they're young."

According to recent studies, the following steps can help parents maintain some control in shaping their child's viewing habits.

"I've been with my department for 16 years.  Having come into the provincial government from the private sector, I was surprised at how rigid the work hours were.  A few of us have been campaigning for all this time to have flex time (or some such) implemented.  I am happy to say we are in a trial period where people can choose to work a compressed work schedule, shorter work day, or alternative work arrangements.  It has been a long haul but we stuck to it.  There has been a visible improvement in morale since this trial period started."  

Memento

Friend: "I suppose you carry a memento of some sort in that locket of yours?"

Woman: "Yes, it's a lock of my husband's hair."

Friend: "But your husband is still alive."

Woman: "I know, but his hair is gone."

Services Rendered

My little boy came into the kitchen this evening while I was fixing supper. He handed me a piece of paper he'd been writing on. After wiping my hands on my apron, I read it, and this is what it said:

For mowing the grass, $5.
For making my own bed this week, $1.
For going to the store $0.50.
For playing with baby brother while you went shopping, $0.25.
For taking out the trash, $1.
For getting a good report card, $5.
And for raking the yard, $2.

Well, I looked at him standing there expectantly, and a thousand memories flashed through my mind. So, I picked up the paper, and turning it over, this is what I wrote:

For the nine months I carried you, growing inside me, No charge.
For the nights I sat up with you, doctored you, prayed for you, No charge.
For the time and the tears, and the cost through the years, No charge.
For the nights filled with dread, and the worries ahead, No charge.
For advice and the knowledge, and the cost of your college, No charge.
For the toys, food and clothes, and for wiping your nose, No charge.
Son, when you add it all up, the full cost of my love is No charge.

Well, when he finished reading, he had great big tears in his eyes. He looked up at me and he said, "Mama, I sure do love you." Then he took the pen and in great big letters he wrote, P A I D - I N - F U L L.

For more information on this and other subjects go to Interventions Archive.  The EFAP assists you and your family resolve personal problems and maintain healthy and productive lives. 

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