Parents who work remotely with their child nearby face a higher level of daily stress.
- When intense and long-lasting, stress can have serious effects on the physical and mental health of the workers concerned.
- Parents who work remotely with their child nearby face a higher level of daily stress.
- Data for this cross-sectional study were collected from May to July 2022 through a survey in all 77 Chicago neighborhoods.
A recent study examined the effects of teleworking on parents’ mental and physical health during the Covid-19 pandemic, a period when many children were also learning from home.
Stress and teleworking: a study carried out in Chicago
“The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the organization of work by increasing the frequency of teleworking. Studies carried out before the Covid-19 pandemic revealed contradictory associations between teleworking and employee health. Furthermore, parents constitute a unique subset of employees”, write the researchers at the beginning of their report to justify their test.
Data for this cross-sectional study were collected from May to July 2022 through a survey in the 77 neighborhoods of Chicago, a sociodemographically plural urban center.
Stress and teleworking: “no association for mothers”
The criteria for being able to participate in the research were to be aged 18 or over and to be a parent of at least one child living in the household.
Results : “telecommuting fathers reported higher parenting stress than on-site fathers, but there was no association for mothers,” note the scientists. However, the general state of health of the entire cohort was not impacted by teleworking.
“The diversity of the cohort allows these results to be generalized to non-US workers,” add the researchers.
What is the impact of stress on health?
“Hypertension, depression… Stress is not an illness in itself, but when it is intense and lasts, it can have serious effects on the physical and mental health of the workers concerned,” explain the Inrs.
Stress is a physiological adaptation response of the body that allows us to react to our changing environment.