Women’s mental load doesn’t take a vacation. If ladies want to give themselves a little respite during the summer season, a study by Ifop and the Voyage avec Nous website shows that 66% of them perform more tasks than their spouses… even on vacation.
Holidays of all kinds
Preparing the suitcases, choosing the destination or the budget… To organize their summer holidays, women do not have time to rest, creating a significant mental load during the summer holidays. As confirmed by an Ifop study, published on July 7, one of the first to take an interest in “summer mental load”, “two in three women in a relationship (66%) say they have done more than their partner in the organization of the holidays for this summer of 2022″. The survey reveals that the majority of women take care of household chores, the organization of holidays, while paying attention to the children, even during the truce. summer.
For François Kraus, director of the “Gender and sexualities” center at Ifop: “This survey shows that holidays, whether in terms of their preparation or their progress, are not immune to gender privilege, which means that men generally do less than women in most household-related tasks. married life and children”. The director adds that the driving of the family car remains “a male preserve”. Indeed, if they are on the front line for daily tasks, men take the wheel more often; 58% of themcompared to 18% of women, provide the journey.
If they want to escape the routine during the holidays, the daily routine is commonplace, even during the holidays. Between anger, fatigue and disappointment, some report that this is due to our sociological mores.
Sociologically rooted habits
This unequal distribution of tasks between French men and women is a source of tension among couples. According to the survey, 42% of respondents admitted to having argued for this reason. 54% of them take care of meal preparation, compared to 24% of men. 53% of women take care of the cleaning and upkeep of the vacation spot, compared to 15% of men, and 53% of women do the shopping, compared to 22% of men. And that, “despite the greater availability of the spouse”as François Kraus evokes.
If the burden of women is a hot topic that drags on, an article in the Obs nevertheless reports that some women would not see themselves leaving their husbands in charge. This need to control is explained by the fact of our sociologically anchored habits, according to this same source, for which women “come to believe that the man could not manage on his own to go on vacation”.
This Ifop study was carried out via a self-administered online questionnaire from June 22 to 24, 2022, shortly before the summer holidays. It was carried out on 1,099 people in couples, from a sample of 1,503 people; it is representative of the French population aged 18 and over.