"Sometimes I feel like a hamster on a wheel": Stress in daily life of family people in Iceland

Abstract

The aim of the study was to look at work-life balance in Icelandic families and to what extent parents experience stress in their daily lives. For the ninth year in a row, Iceland is at the top of the Gender Gap Index. This indicates that Iceland has been successful when it comes to gender equality in terms of women´s economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health, survival, and political empowerment. At the same time we increasingly see news about people experiencing stress in their daily lives, burning out at work and suffering from stress related diseases. Research shows that despite their high level of labour force participation, Icelandic women still do a greater share of domestic work and child care than men. Parents in Iceland have been found to desire a shorter work week, which indicates that they find it challenging to balance work and family life. To explore this further, focus group interviews were conducted in Akureyri and Reykjavík, with three groups of women and three groups of men. Both men and women described stress in their daily lives, but women more so than men. Meeting the demands of work, a clean home, and children´s school and after school activities was described as often exhausting. All groups expressed a strong wish for a shorter work week, in order to relieve stress and increase the quality of family life.