Women and men unequal when it comes to the stress of teleworking

(Image: Pixabay CC0) The stress factors associated with working at home affect women and men differently, and these effects vary greatly from Quebec to France . A wide-ranging study of telecommuting since the pandemic, as part of an extensive project initiated and piloted by Gaëlle Cachat-Rosset , professor in the Faculty of Administrative Sciences at Université Laval, shows that women and men in Quebec and France are affected differently by the stress factors associated with telecommuting. During the pandemic, the researchers were able to observe the stress factors of people who teleworked. They assessed differences by gender, and by the more egalitarian social system in Quebec and the less egalitarian system in France, in terms of parental allowances, access to daycare, paternity leave and pay equity. The research team found that when teleworking, women experienced higher levels of stress than men in a more unequal country like France. The stress experienced by women and men did not show the same difference in a more egalitarian context such as Quebec. The stress factor linked to family interference with work was particularly high among women in the French scheme, while men were little affected.