The commute to work is affecting is more than our male counterparts
Commuting has been proven to affect women more than men.
The study which looked at the effects of the daily commute on pschological health suggests that the added responsibilities of childcare and household chores on women increase the burden of getting to work.
Those worse affected are mothers with pre-school youngsters. The research found that they are more likely to suffer mental problems than men with children of a similar age.
The study published in the Journal of Health Economics, involved asking people whether they had lost sleep over worry, felt under strain or had a sense of self-worthlessness.
"We know that women, especially those with children, are more likely to add daily errands to their commute, such as food shopping and dropping off and picking up children from childcar," says co-author and economist professor Jennifer Roberts, from the University of Sheffield.
"These time constraints and the reduced flexibility that comes with them make commuting stressful in a way that it wouldn't be otherwise."
Only women who were single and childless, who had flexible work hours or whose partners were main carers for their children were unaffected.
Paul Dolan, of the London School of Economics, says: "Men also experience competing demands on their time, so it may simply be they are less affected by the pschological costs of commuting."
Tagged in Health