How Stressed are Working Moms in COVID Times?

First Part of a Series on a New Study Among Working Moms

It’s fair to say that almost all of our lives have been radically (and potentially irrevocably) impacted by COVID-19 over the past five weeks. While taking a social distance walk with my friend Giselle, we shared stories that we have heard over phone calls, texts, Zoom calls and in-person from other working moms. It seems we share many challenges in common such as having our children at home, trying to help them with online schooling, ensuring they maintain social distance, trying to do our paid jobs, making sure we have enough food in the house and keeping ourselves sane. At the same time, we’re worrying about the health of our elderly parents and our at-risk friends, worrying that the global economy may tank and wondering what to do about any of it. There’s no shortage of things keeping us up at night.

That was the genesis of the Working Moms in COVID times survey. This survey was fielded among 660 working mothers with children, newborn through college-age [personally, I had a lovely three months of being an empty nester]. Both Giselle and I used our personal networks to recruit respondents. Since we are both highly educated and live in Silicon Valley, the moms recruited from our networks [through LinkedIn, Facebook and text] are more likely to be professional women who can afford to live in an area with a relatively high cost of living, though I did not ask about income. For ease of discussion, I’ll refer to this sample as ”Authors’ Networks”. For my day job, I conduct market research. One of my survey partners, Savanta, saw that I had posted a link to the survey on LinkedIn, then graciously offered to provide me with a sample for 500 respondents. Savanta’s sample source is representative of the US general population — within Savanta’s panel we screened for working moms. I will refer to this sample as “General Population”.

Over the next several days I will share some of the results and analysis. Today, I want to start with the “Overall Stress Levels” of working moms.

The question that I asked was “How much overall stress are you experiencing in the current environment?”

On average, among all the working moms we surveyed, stress level was reported to be 66 out of a possible 100. To me, this translates to overall concern, but certainly not doom-and-gloom levels of panic. That’s unsurprising, since women are resilient, and working mothers already know how to juggle priorities yet stay focused in the course managing their busy lives.

I also analyzed the stress levels by different sub-groups of respondents. Even among working moms experiencing higher COVID-related risk (because they have family members with a compromised immune system, because a family member has been diagnosed with COVID-19, or because their employer puts them in a position associated with risk of exposure), the average stress level was 70 or less.

The consistency of responses is heartening to me that we will get through this crisis and stay strong for our families.

Here are some quotes from our respondents about how they are feeling:

“Overall the situation has been manageable but the unknown of how long it will last causes stress”

“General concerns about near future: lockdowns being relaxed too soon, school performance of the kids, potential economic impact (future loss of job if employers downsize)”

“My concern is when will we have enough testing, medical treatment and/or vaccine?”

And, one final respondent who epitomizes the practicality of working moms…. Let’s adapt and move on.

“The reality is this is a new normal…we need to find ways to thrive. It’s not going to get much better anytime soon. So we have to figure out a new way of doing things.”

Coming Soon:

Tomorrow I am going to post about some of the factors which are driving moms’ stress levels. Spoiler alert: there are some noteworthy differences between Authors’ Network Moms and US General Population Moms.

Other topics which I will share soon include:

• how is online school working out?
• how is WFH with children home all day?
• who is managing HH chores now?