Employees without children are most often stressed

Søren Schack Hansen and his wife have five children aged 8 to 18, 4 from past relationships and 1 together.

This means that the days quickly fill up with parent-teacher conferences, sports practices and practical chores. The couple's friends sometimes wonder why they don't burn out, but Søren himself almost never feels stressed. In fact, he has only become more relaxed the more children came into his life.

And it's not about him being more calm than others. Rather, Søren Schack Hansen emphasises that he has become better at prioritising his time and letting go of work after he became a father.

'When I was new to the job market, I couldn't figure out how to set boundaries. I tend to want to do everything perfectly, so I showed up early and left late. It also often ended up with me working in the evenings and at weekends', says Søren Schack Hansen, who is trained as a mechatronics engineer.

'I have always had difficulty knowing when I have delivered enough. But after having children, I've learned that delivering 80 percent is often enough. I've learned that my expectations of myself are simply higher than other people's expectations of me,' he explains.

Being a parent is meaningful

It is often emphasised that families with children are busy, but a survey among IDA members shows that the stress level is even higher among those who do not have children.

Among those who do not have children, 18 percent respond that they have always or often felt stressed during the past 2 weeks, while this applies to 11 percent of parents.

The trend is most significant for women, especially in the 20-29 age group. Here, 13 percent of the respondents without children answer that they have felt stressed often or all the time within the past 2 weeks, while this applies to 4 percent of the mothers.

This difference continues throughout respondents’ working lives, and according to the survey, 24 percent of women without children in the 50-59 age group feel stressed, while the same applies to 14 percent of mothers in the same age group.

Naja Hulvej Rod, who is a professor of epidemiology at Copenhagen University, explains that several studies have shown that parents are less stressed than people without children. If you dive into the numbers, there are, however, a few exceptions.

I myself have helped carry out a study in the area, and here we could see that parents in nuclear families are less stressed, but that single parents, and single mothers in particular, have a higher stress level', says Naja Hulvej Rod.

In order to understand why parents are apparently less stressed, even though there is a great responsibility and many duties that come with having children, according to the professor, it is important to distinguish between being busy and experiencing stress.

'You experience stress when you are in a life situation that is characterised by tension and a lack of motivation. It may well be that families with children are busy, but they have often chosen it themselves, and it is meaningful for them to spend time on all these practical duties', explains Naja Hulvej Rod.

Besides the fact that having children is meaningful and leads to closer social relationships, Naja Hulvej Rod points out that parenthood can provide some fixed framework in everyday life, which can help ward off stress.

'It can be especially helpful for highly educated people, because they often experience that their work is limitless. If you have children, you have to leave at a certain time to pick them up, and then you might sit and build LEGO with them on the floor when you get home, so you are forced to think about something other than work'.

However, Naja Hulvej Rod also points out that involuntary childlessness can have an influence on the study's results.

'We know from research that it is very stressful if you have a dream of having children that you cannot fulfill', says Naja Hulvej Rod.

'If you are not your work, who are you?'

When Søren Schack Hansen became a father, he could not work as many hours as before, but his manager at the time did not understand that he had to prioritise differently. He therefore chose to resign and find a job as a lecturer instead of an engineer.

'It was quite a big change in my way of identifying myself, and if I hadn't had my family, it would probably have hit me hard. After all, you put a lot of identity into your work, so if you're not that, who are you?'.

'But I have come to the realisation that work is not my life. It gives me a salary which is the prerequisite for a good life, and of course it must also be fun and exciting, but my family and children are the first priority', explains Søren Schack Hansen, who no longer teaches, but today works as a mechanical engineer.

'When you have children, it puts things in a completely different perspective because you have to put yourself aside completely for another person. Personally, I don't think there are other things that can create a shift in your priorities and your identity in the same way as having children'.

It is more accepted that parents leave early

Pernille Steen Pedersen is an assistant professor at CBS and has researched the connection between stress and shame for several years. According to her, stress sufferers often feel inadequate because they cannot live up to their own or their surroundings' expectations. But having children means that many will have to lower their expectations of their own work effort.

‘We have high demands on ourselves when we are at work, but when you have children, it can help you become better at compromising and more accepting of the fact that you cannot solve all tasks to perfection’ , she says.

‘This can be more difficult if you don't have children. In fact, many of the most responsible employees tend to think that now I had better pull the heavy load when there is a deadline, because my colleague has to pick up the children’.

Pernille Steen Pedersen explains that both internal and external expectations come into play when employees without children feel that they have to work harder than their colleagues who have children. Many workplaces have a special focus on work life balance for families with children.

'There is broad agreement that there must be good conditions for families with children, and that they must be allowed to leave early to pick up the kids. But even if you don't have kids, you might just as much need to come home to recover, and that understanding might be a little lacking.'

She encourages employers to improve the work culture for all employees instead of focusing on individual groups.

'It is about creating some framework for sustainable working life, and here it is necessary to put in effort on several fronts. First of all, it is important that senior management sends a signal about what is expected. Sometimes it may be necessary for a manager to actively help the employee to be able to compromise and to be able to go home with a clear conscience'.

'Next, it is crucial that you can talk honestly with your colleagues about what expectations are in the workplace and how much you can really overcome, so that you can help each other navigate the workload', says assistant professor Pernille Pedersen.

'But the first step is to start talking openly about stress and what expectations we have of ourselves and each other at work, and how we can support each other in navigating these expectations'.