How Working From Home Has Impacted A Working Mom's Work-Life Balance

Life as a working parent is a demanding act that requires juggling between work and life hours together to create a cycle that works for their profession and families.

The COVID-19 has intensified the challenges that women face in the workplace. While working mothers have always had to balance the work and looking after their children. the pandemic has created different challenges. With 2020 completely changing the way we work and live, many people who regularly work in an office-based job are now remotely working, blurring the line between work and home.

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As mothers are more likely to be responsible for housework and caregiving, they have to adapt to work-related changes caused by the pandemic. They also have to look after their children, possibly homeschool, and keep on top of housework. It is not an easy balance, yet mothers across the globe are facing this daily.

Over the past year or so, working mothers have had to navigate a radical transition because of the pandemic. As they continue to work from home, juggling between work and taking care of their children has taken a whole new meaning.

The past year shows just how dramatically the pandemic has affected working mothers. They¡¯ve grappled with a ¡°double shift¡± of household responsibilities, mental health challenges, and a more difficult remote-work experience.

1. The ¡®double shift¡¯ burden grows

Decades of research show that women do significantly more housework and childcare than men¡ªso much so that women who are employed full-time are often said to be working a ¡°double shift.¡±

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Now, women, and mothers in particular, are taking on an even heavier load. Mothers are more than likely to be responsible for most of the housework and caregiving during the pandemic. In fact, they are 1.5 times more likely than fathers to spend an additional three or more hours per day on housework and childcare.

As the home-care burden is spilling over to work, many working mothers are said to be worried about their work performance and are concerned about being judged negatively because of their caregiving responsibilities.

2. Impact on physical/mental health

For many working mothers, the pandemic is upending their work/life balance and affecting their physical and mental health, and some are even questioning their current and long-term career prospects. Some have cited working longer hours because of the pandemic, in addition to juggling extra caregiving duties as a result of pandemic-related consequences (i.e., school closures, caring for relatives) while also working full-time.

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The pandemic has exposed how our current system is stacked against working mothers, and it has highlighted the mounting challenges they face in balancing the two acts. While the pandemic has wreaked havoc on most everyone¡¯s lives, many people may not be aware of the extra onus on working mothers.

3. Unpaid labour at home

At the beginning of the pandemic, there were high hopes that the global shift to home-working could mean childcare and chores would be divided more equally within couples. But numerous studies of working parents¡¯ lives during Covid-19 have shown that a disproportionate share of the burden is still falling on women.

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Researchers from Boston Consulting Group, which surveyed more than 3,000 people in the US and Europe last year, found that working women currently spend an average of 15 hours a week more on unpaid domestic labour than men.

4. Working women are home-schooling their children

Schools and nurseries across some states in India are beginning to gradually reopen. But a large proportion of school-age children remain at home, in the care of their mothers, who may also be working.

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Globally, how and when to reopen schools is one of the most difficult decisions facing policy-makers, grappling to balance the risk of reigniting infection rates against longer-term consequences to social development.

Schooling and looking after children at home places a large burden on working mothers who are also weathering the responsibilities that their employers provide them.

5. COVID is pushing gender gap even wider for working moms

The coronavirus pandemic has put parents under immense strain, but the crisis is exposing new inequalities in the gender gap as working mothers shoulder the greater burden.

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While many working parents have experienced disruptions, it is often working moms who take on the extra responsibilities and stressors of managing day-to-day life. Three-quarters of mothers work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a study by the Pew Research Center found that 56% of mothers surveyed said it is ¡°somewhat/very difficult¡± to balance both work and life responsibilities.

With children an often visible part of a working mother¡¯s day, it has led them shouldering more responsibility as work/life balance becomes a distant prospect.

For working mothers struggling under the weight of work and home responsibilities, pandemic has been an opportunity for her to readjust her own expectations of what success looks like.