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In today’s often intense work culture, it can be difficult to strike—and successfully maintain—a good balance between work and our personal lives.
It’s always been seen that stay-at-home mums have more stress than their partners, looking after the children, having a full-time or part-time job, as well as running the home. But a new study claims men are just as concerned about their work-life balance as much as their partners are.
Studying more than 250,000 people, U.S. psychologists found that the majority of working fathers are plagued by stress, but they are too frightened to talk about it for fear of appearing less “masculine”.
So why do we accept this outdated notion that men don’t have any issues relating to stress and work-life balance?
It’s taken time, but new research has now pointed out the dangers of gender stereotypes that are preventing men from seeking and asking for help relating to high levels of stress at work. We all suffer from stress—both men and women—buts it’s how men deal with stress that is the difference between the sexes.
Professor Kristen Shockley, a psychologist at the University of Georgia, admitted she was surprised by the results.
She said, “We essentially found very little evidence of differences between women and men as far as the level of work-family conflict they report. This is quite contrary to the common public perception. The way this issue is presented in the media frames the way we think about it, and it creates a perpetual cycle.”
In 1998, a Stanford University study accurately predicted that by 2020 advances in technology will have eliminated many lower to mid-level jobs. These advances will have also significantly increased the workload of more senior managers, keeping them working around the clock which will continue this perpetual cycle further, based on fear and uncertainty for long-term job security.
Adding further to the debate, a 2017 survey by Kronos and Future Workplace, reveals that the restructuring of work has resulted in significant burnout. Nearly half, or 46% of the human resource leaders surveyed, reported that employee burnout accounts for 20-50% of their companies’ annual employee turnover. Which again adds further to this debate on how men and women can balance their work and home life that not only helps them as parents but also helps their employer to retain key staff and reduce staff turnover?
In researching this topic, I came across this simple idea on dad.info to see whether you would rather be at home or work:
On a blank sheet of paper, draw a picture of yourself in the middle of the page. (Stickman will do, don’t stress over it.) Next, draw a line down the middle (effectively you split yourself in half). On one side write “home” at the top of the page, and on the other side write “work”. Now list all the things you really like about home/work under each heading. Finally, list all the things you don’t like about home/work.
Which list stands out: Do you work to live, or live to work?
- Do you prefer being at work more than at home?
- Is there anything you could do to improve your home life, or are you prepared to accept things as they are?
- What are the issues at home? Talk to your wife/partner or a friend and discuss what could be changed along with what has to be accepted.
- Do you prefer being at home more than at work?
- Is it time to look for a new job/change in career?
- Are you able to put up with a “less-than-perfect” job when balanced with a great home life?
Men are less likely than women to ask for help or flexibility.
It’s always been seen that the role of a man is to be the main wage earner and the role of women has been to support him at home.
But times have changed. It’s now common for both mum and dad to hold down demanding roles, but the responsibility of running the home and looking after the children at home still falls to a large degree on the mum.
Even though the number of stay-at-home fathers has almost doubled since the mid-1990s, it’s still the case that women are far more likely to take the lion’s share of parental responsibilities.
It’s clear from research that men need to be a bigger part of the work-life balance conversation and that we could all benefit from more communication about a variety of career issues—from the way we promote our work, to how much we think we’re worth, and the hours that both men and women work that have such impact on quality time at home.
In his book, “All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses–And How We Can Fix It Together”, Josh Levs, makes the point:
To advance businesses, societies, and families, it’s time to treat dads as equal caregivers to their children. Time for all of us, men and women, to correct our understandings of men. “All in” shatters myths about fathers. It shows that women can’t get equal opportunities in the workplace if men can’t get equal opportunities at home. It is being called a “rallying cry,” the “anthem” of our time, igniting a revolution for gender equality.
Work-Life balance is very personal—no two men will have the same values.
Balance is personal. No two men are the same, and each one will have ground rules. What works for them may not work for someone else.
Every job is different, you may work a shift pattern that keeps you away from home on nights and weekends, or you could be required to travel a lot within your job. Remember that everyone’s job is different and each role has different stresses.
Also, you have to consider your role in the company, position in the company, the industry you are in, your family situation, your hobbies and interests, and everything else that makes you unique.
Consider two people in the same company doing the same job. One is married with children, while the other one is single, a very common situation in a lot of companies. Part of the role is that you will travel on a regular basis to different countries. For the single guy this great news, having no family commitments he has the chance to see the world while working at no cost to himself. For him, work-life balance is not a major issue.
On the other hand, the family man will be excited at first at the prospect of expanding his horizons. But two months into the travelling, he might begin feeling conflicted because in as much as he enjoys the trips, he misses his kids’ important milestones, and he is not able to be with his family as much as he would want to.
He will begin questioning his work-life balance and he might even have second thoughts about his job.
Many working dads still feel it’s their duty to go out and earn the money.
In the U.S., there is no guarantee of paternity or maternity leave. A recent study revealed just 10 percent of working fathers in America get paid paternity leave at the value of their full salary, compared to 21 percent of mothers.
In April 2015, the UK introduced shared parental leave rule that dads can legally take two weeks of paid maternity leave. Research among 200 employers by the firm My Family Care found that more than four out of 10 had not seen a single male employee take up the right.
The research found that concerns over career progression were a factor for many, with half of the men saying they thought taking leave was perceived negatively at work, and 55% of mothers questioned said they did not want to share their leave.
Al Ferguson, the founder of the website, The Dad Network, said the figures showed there was still a stigma attached to a father’s role in parenting. “Many working dads still feel it’s their duty to go out and earn the money, despite having this option to stay at home with their new baby.”
A government assessment suggested 285,000 working fathers would be eligible to take the leave, but only 2% to 8% would do so. This compares with about nine in 10 fathers in Sweden and Norway, where between 80% and 100% of their earnings are replaced while they are on leave.
Are we trying to find the Holy Grail of the work-life balance?
Everyone you talk to is looking for that perfect balance between work and home. The question is, are we all chasing a dream that is beyond our reach?
In today’s fast-paced workplace, most men and women are pushed to do more, to work longer hours, to produce more with fewer resources. Reportedly, people in the United States work more than any other population, and data provided by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development indicate that the average U.S. employee put in a total of 1,783 working hours during 2016.
There seems to be more pressure to be successful—whatever that means—than ever before. While doing the job of two or three people at work, we’re expected to be exemplary parents and have a fulfilling personal life in which we bring up perfect children, enjoy our hobbies, volunteer in the community, and take superb care of our bodies, spirits, and minds.
But I maintain that while the quest for balance is a wonderful goal, it’s just not a realistic goal for most men. Instead, it has become one more thing to worry about.
What if the balance we’re looking for in our lives was more like the dietary balance that nutritionists recommend? We don’t need to eat all the proper numbers of servings from the five food groups each and every day. The goal is to eat a diet that allows us to get a good balance over the course of a week or month that’s still quite healthy.
So, if you relate that to work, there are times when we need to work more than usual and other times when we can take more time off. Sometimes, we can focus more intently on our home life and hobbies; at other times different priorities take precedence.
A rising number of fathers are finding out what their partners knew for decades: you really can’t have it all.
We live in a competitive business world, and companies operate globally, more often than not in different time zones. One minute, you could talk to someone in the USA and the next, to someone in Asia, and they need their employees to be just as flexible, which does mean working long hours over the course of the day, and evenings as well as weekends.
Can we really expect employers to gear their business around our needs? We can’t have our cake and eat it, too; we can’t pick and choose what hours we want to work. We would all like to work fewer hours and most men would like less stressful roles.
Of those surveyed, just under half (48%) were in households where both parents worked full-time. For millennial couples, this increased to 52%. Surviving on one income, as their parents did, is just not possible for many today.
Sarah Jackson, chief executive of Working Families, said she had noticed the change coming for several years. “It’s become more and more evident in the surveys that we’ve done. Millennial fathers have different expectations from previous generations. They are more likely to be dropping their children off at nursery than millennial mothers. These younger fathers have aspirations of what fatherhood looks like. For them, there is equality at home, and both they and their partners work.”
James Willshire, 37, is a typical example. A married father of two, he works in the finance department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and counts himself lucky—his employer offers an onsite nursery. But he and his wife need their joint income to make things work. “It’s not an option for my wife not to work,” said Willshire. “For me, it would be lovely to have a part-time job but I’d be concerned about how I was going to pay the mortgage.”
Willshire has thought of cutting his hours but, living in an expensive part of the country, it’s an unrealistic prospect. “The high cost of housing around here drives most other things,” he says. “If you want to own your home and pay a mortgage, you’ve got to be at work.”
And that’s the dilemma, we want the trappings of success—a nice house, two cars, regular holidays, eating out, buying clothes etc. But there is a price to pay for this new equality. With more and more couples working full-time, there is a real issue of burnout. They have a lack of time with each other, and with their kids, which feeds the fire of stress and anxiety. It’s the hamster in the wheel scenario.
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Photo credit: Getty Images