Why women are at a greater risk of ‘digital overload’

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Women are at far greater risk of " digital overload " than men, warns a new study.

Moms in particular are more likely than men to frequently use information and communication technologies (ICT) in both work and family lives, say scientists.

The "digital double burden" of juggling work and family life heightens the potential risk of "digital overload" and "burnout" for women, according to their findings.

And working from home more regularly since the COVID-19 pandemic has seen the "digital double burden" falling disproportionately on women’s shoulders.

Researchers say the study - published in the journal Community, Work and Family - has "important" implications for the "unequal" gender division of digital labor,

Professor Yang Hu, of Lancaster University , worked with Professor Yue Qian, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and examined gender and digital labor across 29 countries, including the UK.

Digital labor involves the use of various digital tools and platforms, such as Zoom and WhatsApp, for completing everyday work and domestic tasks.

As the pandemic accelerated the progress of digitalization, people increasingly used ICT for work and family communication.

Professor Hu said: “As frequent ICT use takes time and effort, it constitutes a new form of labor.

“Our study examined gender inequalities in the performance of such digital labor.”

The research team used date from the European Social Survey and looked at how people maintain digital communication for work and family.

They limited the sample to 6,654 working respondents aged 30 to 59 who have both at least one child, aged 12 or above, and at least one living parent, to examine their ICT use for both work and family.

The team found a distinctive work-family "digital double burden" – with women 1.6 times more likely than men to juggle dual-high digital communication both at work and at home.

They also discovered that the traditional gender division of labor in work and family lives extends into the performance of digital labor.

Women were 31% less likely than men to have high work-only digital communication, but 2.6 times more likely than men to have high family-only digital communication.

In the UK, 42% of the respondents had a dual medium-high work-family digital communication, which is lower than the average of 48% across the 29 countries examined.

The team said that the UK respondents were, therefore, to a lesser extent burdened by the dual digital labor in work and family lives compared to respondents from, for example, Norway (59%), Spain (54%) and Serbia (65%).

UK respondents had one of the highest proportions of work-only digital communication, with 30% having a high level of digital labor only for work but not in family life, second only to Israel (31%) across the 29 countries examined.

Hu said: “Policymakers, educators, and practitioners are investing heavily in building digital capacity globally in many societies.

“Our findings show that among people with a higher level of digital literacy and in countries where people use the internet more intensely, women are particularly more likely than men to suffer the ‘digital double burden’.”

Qian added: “The findings urge policymakers, educators, and practitioners to incorporate gender equality considerations into their efforts at building digital capacity.

"Women’s gain in digital literacy should not come at the cost of their juggling heavy digital burden in both work and family lives.”

The team said that while working from home offers workers the flexibility to juggle jobs and family responsibilities, it’s also becoming a "crucial" new site of gender inequality in digital labour.

Professor Hu added: “We need gender-egalitarian work-from-home arrangements and policies."

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