Study: Women Multitask More than Men
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 05:02PM A new study has confirmed what many working women may have guessed: Women multitask at home far more than men.
Researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Michigan State University examined 368 working mothers and 241 fathers who worked outside the home.
The parents wore watches that beeped randomly seven times a day, and at the tone, the subjects wrote down all of the tasks they were doing at the time, as well as their emotional state, including how stressed they were feeling.
The study found that working mothers spent 10.5 more hours every week on juggling multiple tasks at home compared to their male counterparts, NPR reported. A typical juggle for moms included playing with the kids, helping them with homework, while simultaneously fixing dinner, doing laundry and attempting to squeeze in some work from the office.
Sounds familiar, no?
Women reported being more stressed out and overwhelmed than men, who actually felt pleased with their multitasking.
Currently, men work longer hours outside of the home than women, but workplaces should allow more scheduling flexibility so that men can spend more time at home and can help out more with housework and child care, study co-author Barbara Schneider, of Michigan State, told NPR.
Do the results of the study ring true with you? Do you think you spend more or less time doing at-home multitasking than your spouse? Or is it about equal in your family?
By Rachel Silverman, The Wall Street Journal
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