Raising children isn’t considered work, of course. Via ScienceDaily:
Swedish mothers of small children work a lot more now than in the 1970s. This is an important reason why so many parents feel extremely pressured for time. One way to handle the stress is to take advantage of the right for Swedish parents to work half time, according to a new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg. The author of the thesis Jörgen Larsson suggests shorter workweeks for parents.
Jörgen Larsson’s doctoral thesis is based on the observation that parents of small children are in the middle of the most hectic part of their lives. One major reason behind the time pressure is that parents work more hours than in the past. The total paid work time for mothers and fathers of small children has increased by an average of 10 hours per week since the 1970s.
The study, which is based on statistical analysis of 20,000 parents and interviews with 19 fathers, explores parents’ temporal welfare. Temporal welfare is not only a matter of how pressed for time a person is; it also has to do with how satisfied you are with your allocation of time between for example paid work, children, partner, work at home and time to yourself. The temporal welfare is significantly lower among parents than among people without children at home.
Read more here.
