May 23, 2014

"The most relaxing part of most people's day is when they are on the job."

"This is across gender, across education level, across occupation level... So, a pretty strong finding."

More here:
Mothers who work full time and steadily across their twenties and thirties report better mental and physical health at age 45 than mothers who work part-time, who stay at home, or who experience repeated bouts of unemployment.

Further contradicting conventional wisdom, we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home. In fact, women may get more renewal from work than men, because unlike men, they report themselves happier at work than at home. It is men, not women, who report being happier at home than at work.

18 comments:

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

In fact, women may get more renewal from work than men, because unlike men, they report themselves happier at work than at home.

That's an example of siting a correlation but then adding a complete guess as to causation.

Maybe women are happier at work because they are less exposed to the rough and tumble of workday situations there. One wrong word to a female at work and you've earned an unpleasant trip to the HR department, or worse.

I could see how a protective cocoon like that might lead to feeling work is a happy place.

damikesc said...

My at home stress is usually related to work.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Even the NPR commenters are calling bullshit on this pile of silliness.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

If you're good . . .

I mean, really, really good . . .

You can be totally stressed out --equally stressed out -- both at home and at work.

I happen to be a natural.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Well yeah, if they're irresponsible lazy asses who are also too immature and stupid to build a happy home life. I enjoy my work but home and family are a refuge from it. Like George Costanza, I don't like the two worlds to overlap.

campy said...

Womyn gooooood, men baaaad.

David said...

A lot of it depends on what you are coming home to. And who. And how stressed they are about your job.

Wince said...

I'm sure this can be explained by a form of "Workplace Stockholm Syndrome", where "this sort of alienation from family and intimidation about the consequences of leaving the abductor are part of a familiar pattern in these cases, points out Charles Williams, associate professor of psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia."

Adina said...

Work has more concrete goals and timelines. You know when you have finished a task. At home, the work never ends, and is repetitive.

I think it depends on the work you do. Some jobs are more stressful and soul killing then others.

Wince said...

And I always thought this song explained so many men very well...

Take the Long Way Home

But there are times that you feel you're part of the scenery
all the greenery is comin' down, boy
But then your wife seems to think you're part of the
furniture oh, it's peculiar, she used to be so nice.

When lonely days turn to lonely nights
you take a trip to the city lights
And take the long way home
Take the long way home

You never see what you want to see
Forever playing to the gallery
You take the long way home
Take the long way home

And when you're up on stage, it's so unbelievable,
unforgettable, how they adore you,
But then your wife seems to think you're losing your sanity,
oh, calamity, is there no way out?

But does it feel that you life's become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy.
When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what you might have been,
if you had had more time.

So, when the day comes to settle down,
Who's to blame if you're not around?
You took the long way home
You took the long way home...........

HoodlumDoodlum said...

In fact, women may get more renewal from work than men, because unlike men, they report themselves happier at work than at home.

So following on the the Piketty/McArlde discussion, this means women should be taxed more (for income from work), right? Equality!

Ignorance is Bliss said...

So maybe if the girls weren't spending so much time relaxing on the job they'd be able to earn as much as the men.

Anthony said...

Responsibility is stressful. Women feel more responsible for home than work, men the reverse.

Also, it would be interesting to see ths controlled for introversion/extraversion. An extrovert is going to do well at work, especially since a lot of the social outlets for stay-at-home moms aren't as common as they used to be.

Anonymous said...

One wrong word to a female at work and you've earned an unpleasant trip to the HR department, or worse.

One wrong word to a male at work and you're out of a job, or worse.

Anonymous said...

We men like it at home better because we relax at home.

If I had to go home, make dinner, do laundry, shop for food, vacuum, dust, etc, I'd hate it too.

But since I work and my wife stays home, those things are all taken care of.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

madisonfella said...
One wrong word to a female at work and you've earned an unpleasant trip to the HR department, or worse.

One wrong word to a male at work and you're out of a job, or worse.


Nope. Not true at all. Thanks for playing, though.

Alex said...

It's logical. Men are under pressure to deliver projects on time and under budget, while women are under pressure to keep a neat home and well behaved kids.

Michael K said...

This is an old observation, studied best by Csikszentmihalyi years ago. I studied this at Dartmouth.

Mr. Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high-ee) is chiefly renowned as the architect of the notion of flow in creativity; people enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in activity during which they lose their sense of time and have feelings of great satisfaction.

The most common location of "flow" is either work or driving.