Sarita Mohanrao, Research Manager

Women in executive board experience more stress than their male counterparts

 If you are a working woman and a mom like me, then you are among millions of working moms juggling work, family, school activities, grocery shopping etc… You are also among the millions of working women with dreams of making it big in the corporate world yet frustrated to hear that women account for only 16% of directorship in the fortune 500 companies. There are many reasons cited for this. One of them as stated by WSJ in their Dec 2011 blog was that ‘’Guys Don’t Want to Give Up Their Board Seats”.

 How about stress? As you grow in your career, does your stress level also grow and is this a major hurdle in your pursuit to be in highest position?  Our research findings revealed that women in executive positions report higher stress than their men counterparts.

  The study revealed that when compared to men in executive positions, women in executive position are

1)     10% more likely to experience stress balancing work and home

2)     45%more likely to experience stress keeping up with house work

3)     55% more likely to experience stress running necessary errands

 Now, when compared to women NOT in the executive position, women in executive position are

1)     26% more likely to experience stress balancing work and home

2)     21%more likely to experience stress keeping up with house work

3)     39% more likely to experience stress running necessary errands

  So for all the women aspiring to be in the executive boardroom, prepare to embrace stress – not just at work but also at home.

 Our research also uncovered many other reasons contributing towards women’s slow career growth. For example women are more likely to experience home life spill into their work life. During a typical workday, working women are 6% more likely than men to run errands, 9% more likely to go for grocery shopping, 15% more likely to shop for clothes (for the entire family of course) and accessories and 12% more likely to go for a doctor’s appointment. And it is no surprise that women are more than twice likely than men to keep up with various activities at home including keeping up with kid’s homework, laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. The only celebratory data was that when it comes to dropping and picking up their kids, men are likely to share this task.

 With such high levels of stress and more tasks than the letters in the word ‘multitasking’ it is no wonder that there is a low presence of women in executive board and also maybe the reason why ‘guys don’t want to give up their seats’ or as I like to put it ‘why guys don’t want to take women’s seat’.

 Click here for the full report.