By Lyndsey Hall
A new study has revealed the average working mother works 98 hours per week, when factoring in family duties. Two thousand American mothers with children aged between 5 and 12 were interviewed for the study, which was commissioned by Welch, a US company that manufactures fruit-based products.
According to the report, the average working mum starts her day at 6:23am and doesn’t finish her work or family duties until 8:31pm, which adds up to 14 hour days. When asked how much ‘me time’ they got per day, the average mum said they only managed one hour and seven minutes. Unsurprisingly, four in ten said their lives felt like a never-ending series of tasks all week.
The traditional working week is 40 hours, meaning many working mothers are doing the equivalent of more than two full time jobs.
The study’s main aim was to find out what tools and resources working mums couldn’t live without, and the responses were predictable: grandparents, kids’ TV channels, iPads and reliable babysitters.
The US Department of Labor suggests 70% of mums of under-18s participate in the workforce, and 75% of those are employed full time. That’s a large proportion of American working mums who are clocking in almost 100 hour weeks.
A new hashtag has cropped up on Twitter recently encouraging women to share their career achievements despite being told by others they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do it. #IDidItAnyway was started by @WomanthologyUK and has drawn thousands of tweets from successful professional women who have achieved their career goals in the face of criticism and doubt from those around them.
We’d love to hear your stories about life as a working mother, or a woman in a predominantly male industry, leave us a comment or join the conversation on Twitter.
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