“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic
This study analyses the experiences of working from home (WfH) during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has on working mothers through the lens of “mental load.” Remote study, often lauded as a way to reduce work/life conflicts, can bring new multifaceted challenges for working mothers and, as...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:10642287 2023-12-17T10:32:13+01:00 “It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic Delaney, Caitriona Bobek, Alicja Clavero, Sara 2023-10-30 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10642287/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37965663 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 en eng Frontiers Media S.A. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10642287/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37965663 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 Copyright © 2023 Bobek, Delaney and Clavero. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Front Psychol Psychology Text 2023 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 2023-11-19T01:52:58Z This study analyses the experiences of working from home (WfH) during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has on working mothers through the lens of “mental load.” Remote study, often lauded as a way to reduce work/life conflicts, can bring new multifaceted challenges for working mothers and, as this study shows, suddenly shifting to remote work led to the boundaries among work, care, and domestic labour becoming blurred. The data used here are from narrative interviews collected as part of the RESpondIng to outbreakS through co-creaTIve inclusive equality stRatEgies (RESISTIRÉ) Horizon 2020 project, which analyses the impact of COVID-19 policies on gendered inequalities across the EU27 and Türkiye, Serbia, UK, and Iceland. We draw on 12 narratives from working mothers in Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Slovakia. Employing thematic analysis, the analysis of these narratives, illuminates the challenges and opportunities of WfH and highlights its impact on mental load. While adding to the research on WfH and working mothers, the analysis also illustrates the lessons to be taken forward as well as underscoring the importance of mental load both theoretically and empirically. Text Iceland PubMed Central (PMC) Frontiers in Psychology 14 |
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Psychology Delaney, Caitriona Bobek, Alicja Clavero, Sara “It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
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Psychology |
description |
This study analyses the experiences of working from home (WfH) during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has on working mothers through the lens of “mental load.” Remote study, often lauded as a way to reduce work/life conflicts, can bring new multifaceted challenges for working mothers and, as this study shows, suddenly shifting to remote work led to the boundaries among work, care, and domestic labour becoming blurred. The data used here are from narrative interviews collected as part of the RESpondIng to outbreakS through co-creaTIve inclusive equality stRatEgies (RESISTIRÉ) Horizon 2020 project, which analyses the impact of COVID-19 policies on gendered inequalities across the EU27 and Türkiye, Serbia, UK, and Iceland. We draw on 12 narratives from working mothers in Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Slovakia. Employing thematic analysis, the analysis of these narratives, illuminates the challenges and opportunities of WfH and highlights its impact on mental load. While adding to the research on WfH and working mothers, the analysis also illustrates the lessons to be taken forward as well as underscoring the importance of mental load both theoretically and empirically. |
format |
Text |
author |
Delaney, Caitriona Bobek, Alicja Clavero, Sara |
author_facet |
Delaney, Caitriona Bobek, Alicja Clavero, Sara |
author_sort |
Delaney, Caitriona |
title |
“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_short |
“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full |
“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_fullStr |
“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_full_unstemmed |
“It was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic |
title_sort |
“it was too much for me”: mental load, mothers, and working from home during the covid-19 pandemic |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10642287/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37965663 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 |
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Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
Front Psychol |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10642287/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37965663 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2023 Bobek, Delaney and Clavero. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1208099 |
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Frontiers in Psychology |
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14 |
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