What are the psychological costs when both partners work from home?

Australian and international researchers have considered the psychological and relational costs of partners working from home — and strategies to overcome these.

Constant digital interruptions increasing after-work frustration, strained couples’ relationships, and a heavier psychological burden on women; these are some of the challenges that a study with more than 100 participants who lived with their partners while both worked from home full-time through the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed.

The 10-day diary study was published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems and conducted by UNSW Business School’s Scientia Professor Manju Ahuja — in the School of Information Systems and Technology Management — together with Dr Rui Sundrup from University of Louisville and Associate Professor Massimo Magni from Bocconi University.

What the researchers found was heightened frustration and relationship conflict among work-from-home couples, where technology allowed the intrusion of work into family time. They explored what academics call ICT permeability. This is the way in which information and communication technologies — such as email, text messaging, mobile phones and remote meeting applications — pierce the once-solid barrier between work and home life.

A blurring of boundaries that has been associated with distinct challenges. Challenges that differ markedly from households where only one partner worked remotely, according to this research, is a situation where women bear a disproportionate psychological burden from the digital interruptions.

For the study, participants responded to three daily online surveys over consecutive workdays, providing real-time insights into their experiences. This allowed the researchers to capture daily, real-time fluctuations in work-family dynamics and to reduce the retrospective bias common in traditional surveys.

The study follows previous work by Ahuja on the psychological and relational costs of working from home, despite the benefits of flexibility and avoiding the daily commute. “This overall stream of research explores the double-edged sword of technology (such as Zoom and Teams) and anytime-anywhere connectivity,” Ahuja explained.

“The previous research found that, while employees reported significantly improved productivity, they also tended to suffer from stress-related physiological symptoms (like headaches), and their relationships were adversely affected.

“With this new study, we wanted to examine whether these effects are exacerbated when both partners work from home. We were trying to understand what employees can do if they wish to maintain some form of work-life balance in the face of relentless connectivity and constant negotiations of home and work tasks with their partners.”

Scientia Professor Manju Ahuja. Image: Manju Ahuja / UNSW Sydney

According to the researchers, simple planning strategies can help reduce the negative impacts of work technology on home life for couples — the research suggesting that planning behaviour is particularly salient in the context of working from home. In fact, planning was associated with more effective resource allocation, reducing the sense of being overwhelmed by competing demands.

“This suggests that when the remote-working partners engage in joint daily planning to account for meetings and video calls each has scheduled (which can be problematic in certain home office setups) and the domestic and childcare tasks that need to be accomplished at certain times, they face lower levels of frustration with each other and internally,” Ahuja said.

Top image credit: iStock.com/MilanMarkovic. Stock image used is for illustrative purposes only.