22 Nov Understanding Work Life Balance Amongst Women

‘Do we live to work or do we work for a living?’

We have been hearing a lot of concerns about not being able to strike a work-life balance in the last few years, which was especially prominent amongst women during the Covid-19 pandemic. Work-life balance can mean that a person should be able to enjoy and feel fulfilled both at work and home. In the traditional sense, it reflects the individual’s ability to meet their work and family commitments with minimum role conflict (Delecta, 2011). Although, when talking from the binary lens, both men and women experience work-life conflict, women are more likely to experience burnout as compared to cis-men. The ever-increasing responsibilities at workplaces and home often take away women’s time, energy, and motivation to engage in self-care and have some ‘me time. Even though women have gradually started to realize the importance, engaging in self-care may contribute to feelings of guilt and internalized thoughts of being selfish.      

Work from home and women’s struggle to maintain work-life balance 

The boundaries between work and household responsibilities got blurred as many of us have switched to the ‘work from home’ model when the pandemic hit India. Although work-from-home appeared to benefit some people, it also added to burnout which was majorly experienced by women. Many women experienced a lack of concentration and lesser productivity while working at home during the pandemic than they did in the office. Apart from their usual paid and unpaid workload, women also had to cater to everyone’s needs, cook and serve meals on time and be available to hold space for those who were physically as well as emotionally dependent on them. If women were to attend an important meeting, they were still expected to carry out their other non-work-related responsibilities (e.g., cooking, cleaning, caregiving, etc.) and then attend the meeting. But very few cis-men had to juggle their work and non-work-related responsibilities the way women did.   

Many women also felt guilty and found it difficult to discuss their experience of burnout and multiple role demands with their family members who might have had a socially constructed implicit belief that – it is women’s duty to carry out both work and non-work related tasks – which needs to be challenged. Women often felt that they were taken for granted by their family members and even when they asked for help, they got it temporarily for some days and had to ask for it again and again which contributed to the feelings of incompetence, inadequacy, and helplessness. 

Women also found it difficult to address these concerns with their colleagues or supervisors as they feared that discussing work-life conflict may make them appear ‘unprofessional’ or ‘unfit to carry out important work-related responsibilities or get a promotion. Long working hours also posed high demands on women’s mental and physical health as they felt the need to live up to society’s expectations of being ‘superwomen’ and ‘do it all by themselves.   

 

Work-life balance for homemakers

For the longest time, when we heard the term ‘work-life balance, only working individuals came to our minds. We tend to exclude homemakers (the majority of whom identify as women) whose unpaid work frequently goes unnoticed, unacknowledged, less valued, and uncompensated. Little do we realize that this unpaid labor by women sustains families by reducing the cost of caregiving and supports the economy by enabling others in the household to work outside. Homemakers’ mental health can also be affected by the demands of unpaid physical, social and emotional work they do as such work is often taken for granted. As the lines between where the work and life tasks start for a homemaker are almost invisible, its effects on their mental health are not often discussed. Homemakers are also as prone to experiencing burnout as any other working professional and deserve all the support needed to prevent and reduce burnout.       

How to spot signs of work-life conflict and burnout? 

Work-life conflict can be caused by the high demands from work that may interfere with women’s non-work-related responsibilities and activities, and vice versa. This spillover effect from one area of life to another may contribute to women’s experience of burnout. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. The experience of burnout may differ from person to person. Some of the signs of burnout may include:

• Feeling overwhelmed and emotionally drained 
• Feeling helpless, hopeless, and/or trapped 
• Feeling angry at and resentful about people around you
• Feeling isolated from family members, friends and colleagues 
• Increased irritability and frustration
• Increased conflicts with partner, child(ren), other family members and colleagues
• Loss of motivation to carry out everyday tasks and responsibilities 
• Procrastinating i.e., taking longer than usual to carry out the tasks and responsibilities 
• Decreased job satisfaction as well as life satisfaction

Work-family conflict may also contribute to physical symptoms of burnout:

• Experiencing physical exhaustion 
• Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses 
• Headaches, muscle pain
• Changes in appetite or sleep cycle

Work-life conflict and its effects 

Work-life conflict can affect many areas of women’s life including:

• Mental health – Depression, anxiety, anger issues, alcohol and/or substance use, increased stress
• Physical illnesses – Increased likelihood for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.
• Interpersonal difficulties – Increased conflicts with partner(s), lower relationship/ marriage satisfaction
• Reduced interest in sexual activities, reduced sexual arousal, difficulty in reaching an orgasm  
• Reduced productivity, difficulty in concentrating on tasks and responsibilities 
• Difficulty in remembering important details of conversations, meetings, projects      

Is work-life balance really achievable? 

It is important to acknowledge that having a work-life balance in today’s era is, unfortunately, a privilege. Those who belong to the marginalized subsets of our society tend to work to ensure that they and their family can have their next meal. When working women from the marginalized subsets constantly think about and work to have the basic necessities – food, water, air, shelter, and clothes, financial security to survive in this world becomes their highest priority. For such women, having a work-life balance and looking after their own mental and physical health may, unfortunately, take a backseat. 

Even when women are not from the marginalized subsets and not constantly thinking about how they will cater to basic human needs, they tend to experience high pressures to perform increasingly better at the workplace while still maintaining active engagement in their own personal lives than their cis-men counterparts. Whether their work is paid or unpaid, women, in general, are expected to carry out household chores and additional caregiving responsibilities for their children, partners, parents, in-laws, and other family members – something the society does not expect as an obligation from the cis-men counterparts. To answer the question of whether work-life balance is really achievable, women do not have the sole responsibility to create this balance. Their family members, organizations, and society as a whole are also responsible to co-create work-life balance in women’s life.  

What can we do to help women move towards work-life balance? 

Family members can re-distribute household tasks and responsibilities amongst themselves to reduce the burden of unpaid work and emotional as well as physical strain on women, whether they are homemakers or working professionals. Families can also encourage women to take frequent breaks from caregiving responsibilities and engage in self-care.      

Organizations can encourage their employees to have flexible working hours and focus on the quality of work rather than the prescribed office hours per day. Companies can also frame employee-friendly policies, organize family days, ‘bring-your-child-to-work’ days or provide day-care facilities, parental leaves (for both birthing and non-birthing partners) to reduce caregiver burnout. Organizations can also provide allowance and leaves to employees to seek professional psychological support, which in turn will also benefit the organization by improving the employee output and increasing profits.     

Despite these efforts, some women may still feel that they require additional professional support and that is absolutely okay. Asking for professional support to better manage the stressors and move towards work-life balance does not make you weak, inadequate, or incompetent. Psychotherapy can be beneficial for women who not only want to strike a work-life balance but also improve the quality of their life by engaging in self-care and learning to assert their own needs when appropriate structures do not exist in their households or at their workplace.