If you’re feeling run down, ladies, you’re not alone.
Women are more likely to spend double the amount of time than men caregiving, tackling chores and doing housework — all tasks that can lead to a greater impact on mental health and even burnout, according to a new study in the medical journal The Lancet Public Health.
Researchers analyzed data from 19 studies, which included data from over 70,000 individuals around the world. They found women in the U.S. spend about four-and-a-half hours per day caring for their families and homes, while men spend about 2.8 hours a day on the same or similar tasks.
All the household work and caregiving — typically unpaid, so-called “invisible” labor — can in turn take a major toll on women’s mental health. This toiling includes everything from packing up the kids’ lunches and getting them to school, back from soccer practice and the like.
Eve Rodsky, the bestselling author of Fair Play and a mom herself, tells Good Morning America that the type of unpaid labor women take on can be a factor in women’s mental health just as much as the amount of time that is spent doing it.
“Men hold cards that they can do at their own timetable, like mowing the lawn, whereas women are the ones still, to this day, responsible for tasks like meal planning, responsible for grocery shopping, and responsible for things like going to get their children when they’re sick, if a school calls,” Rodsky said.
The author even came up with a “dirty dozen” of these trying chores for moms, which include everything from throwing out the garbage and doing laundry to policing kids’ screen time and meting out discipline.
Makes lawn care pale in comparison, doesn’t it?