The lie of compatibility

Salome is glad that she no longer has to work. After the birth of her second child, her job increasingly became a burden. «I had little to do in the office and the longer I worked, the more I wondered what the point of my job was, while there was so much work to be done at home,» the lawyer recalls. After the birth of her third child, she handed in her notice.

In the meantime, her husband had landed a full-time job as a boss. «I also no longer wanted to put up with the stress of juggling the children alongside my job,» says Salome. «I now really enjoy being with my children.»

However, she only speaks openly about her situation within her closest circle of friends: «I mean, can you even say these days that you care more about your children than your job without being labelled a conservative?»

The so-called compatibility of work and family has been sold to us as harmonious for years. The reality is quite different.

Sabine, an economist, commuted from Bern to Zurich three times a week - early in the morning she dropped her two girls off at the daycare centre and then ran to catch the train.

When she told the office that she was struggling to hold her crying daughter in the arms of a carer she didn't know, she received a tired smile. «I was told that I was just a mother hen who couldn't let go of her children.»

Sabine no longer understood the world, as she was travelling more than two hours to work in order to continue working. At some point, the strain became too much for her. «If I had carried on like that, I would have slipped into burnout,» she says. «I couldn't afford it, if only because of my daughters.»

This is precisely why Nadine has reduced her job. Today, the political scientist still works one day a week as a research assistant - mostly from home, as this is the easiest way to combine it with looking after her two school-age boys.

After the birth of her first child, she shared caring duties with her husband «more or less equally». He reduced to 80 per cent; she worked 60 per cent. «But that was a huge stress,» she remembers. In the evening, the flat looked like a bomb had gone off. There was no time to rest.

They would then feed the children together, put them to bed and tidy the flat before sinking into bed exhausted. In addition, her husband increasingly received better offers at work and always earned more, while Nadine had to accept a 30 per cent pay cut after changing jobs and was forced to do just secretarial work.

At some point it became too much for her and she took some time out to regain her strength. Three women, three scenarios, one justification: Today, women have to defend themselves when they give up their jobs to be there for their children.

Because the maxim when it comes to compatibility is: if you want to, you can. Hey, it's booming from all directions, you just have to try hard enough and then you'll be as well organised as all the other power women. Yet the framework conditions have changed much less than you might think.

Rigid structures make compatibility difficult

The structures in the world of work are as inflexible as they were 50 years ago; more emphasis is still placed on long periods of presence than on output. In addition, politicians are only half-heartedly discussing work-life balance. Only the number of daycare places has increased.

But the women's self-doubt and guilty conscience have not diminished: «I'm finding it increasingly difficult to give my children away just so that I can remain attractive to an employer,» admits Daniela, for example.

When the lawyer gave her son into the hands of strangers after her 14-week maternity leave, she felt as if her heart was being ripped out of her body. The employee could not count on understanding from those around her.

«Today, a modern mother is expected to have her three-month-old baby looked after without remorse in order to return to work as quickly as possible.» The opposite was the case for Daniela. Not only did she miss her child, her work also seemed dull.

The structures in the world of work are as immobile as they were 50 years ago. The only thing that has increased is the number of daycare places.

And when it came to promotion, her motherhood proved to be a career killer: Daniela was simply passed over. Her superior was convinced that as a mother she was no longer flexible enough for a responsible job. Three women, three exceptions? Not at all.

The so-called compatibility of work and family has been sold to us for years as «harmonious» and «satisfying». Successful, happy and wealthy female company founders, ministers and female CEOs can be quoted with encouraging words or write books about their will to succeed.

Not a single person talks or writes about dark circles under their eyes, sleepless nights or organisational disasters due to flu, exam nerves or a train that is already late again in the morning.

The everyday life of normal working parents is, soberly considered, a permanent state of emergency. They complain about «stress» and «too little time». They feel «like they are on a hamster wheel».

They lead a life in the rush hour, pushing themselves to the limit every day, taking their children to nursery early in the morning, rushing to the office, working through lunch and rushing to the supermarket after work - before preparing dinner at home and putting the children to bed.

«Between 1997 and 2013, there was an increase in the overall time burden for all fathers and mothers in couple households,» states the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in its latest analysis.

Mothers and fathers of young children worked an average of 68 and 70 hours per week respectively. It is gradually becoming clear that «reconciling family and career» primarily means working seamlessly in one piece.

It is therefore a myth that children and a career can be reconciled without friction. It's time to debunk this myth. To find out what is going wrong in this debate.

Myth 1:

Housework and childcare will be shared equally between mothers and fathers if both are in employment.

Wrong: Housework and childcare are still the responsibility of women.

More and more women are continuing to work after the birth of a child, most of them - 63 per cent - part-time. However, the hope that men would also reduce their workload in order to share the household and children with their working partners has proven to be a mistake.

According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), a good three quarters of working women still bear the main responsibility for housework and childcare alone.

Expressed in figures: Mothers spend an average of 55.5 hours a week making sure the fridge is full, the food is cooked, the flat is tidy, the clothes are washed and the children are happy.

Burnout among housewives and working mothers is on the rise.

If she also has a job, the average workload increases to 68 hours. That is almost 10 hours a day, including Saturdays and Sundays. The BfS study concludes that the increased labour market participation of mothers, which has been observed in recent years, leads to an even greater overall workload for women. However, the average workload of men is also enormous.

Because their wives work, they have to help out more in the household: fathers in families with small children do 30.5 hours of housework per week. Combined with gainful employment - which in most cases involves a full-time workload of at least 40 hours - this is also a considerable 70-hour week.

Myth 2:

«Modern fathers» care more about their offspring than their career.

Wrong: Professional success is more important to fathers than the family.

Yes, they do exist, the «modern fathers» who proudly take their babies for a walk in a sling, feed them porridge and buy nappies in the supermarket. In fact, it is believed that «modern fathers» relieve their working partners at home.

Some would like to - as a representative study by Pro Familia shows, which generally looks at men's (not just fathers') desire to work part-time. It states that 9 out of 10 men would like to work part-time.

However, there is a wide gap between desire and reality: 9 out of 10 fathers still work full-time. «The committed father who shares family work with his mother as a partner is an exotic figure,» says Austrian family researcher Irene Mariam Tazi-Preve.

The man is career-orientated and defines himself by his job, his position, the money - and only then by his children, says Tazi-Preve.

A study by the German Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, which surveyed 947 men between the ages of 18 and 65, came to a similar conclusion: Success at work is more important to most men than their family.

If there is a time conflict between work and family, the majority of men - in contrast to mothers - opt for work.

Myth 3:

A high workload is an expression of an emancipated life.

Wrong: Too much work makes you ill.

The workload that both fathers and mothers manage on a weekly basis is not without consequences. A study by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) found that around a third of employees are frequently or very frequently stressed.

This is 30 per cent more than ten years ago. While men cite deadlines, annoying bosses and stressful working hours as stress factors, women most often struggle to juggle work and family life. In addition, the double burden is increasingly leading to mental disorders.

«Burnout among housewives and working mothers is on the rise,» said Wulf Rössler, Head and Clinic Director of the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich.

Women who work 60 hours a week are three times more likely to develop cancer or suffer a heart attack.

A similar situation can be observed in Germany: According to Anne Schilling, Managing Director of the Mothers' Convalescent Centre in Berlin, the number of mothers suffering from exhaustion syndrome or even burnout, sleep disorders, anxiety or headaches has risen significantly.

In 2003, the proportion of mothers taking a cure for mental disorders was still 49 per cent. Ten years later, this figure had risen to 86 per cent. Time pressure and a lack of recognition for their work are the biggest burdens on mothers.

American scientists have also discovered that women who work 60 hours a week are three times more likely to develop cancer, arthritis, diabetes or suffer a heart attack.

This is triggered by the health-damaging influence of multiple stress caused by the multiple burdens of children and household.

Myth 4:

Those who work more also have more money.

Wrong: We are working more and more for less and less money.

Mothers and fathers are working more and more - and still can't make ends meet: expensive childcare costs, tax progression on two incomes, exploding health insurance premiums and housing rents are putting a strain on the middle classes' wallets.

There is often hardly any money left over at the end of the month, even if both parents work long hours. Monika Bütler, professor of economics at the University of St. Gallen, discovered years ago that a second income is often not worthwhile.

A daycare place costs an average of CHF 110 per day. With an average of 22 crèche days per month, this is a considerable amount that corresponds to a third of the household income of an average family, as the University of St. Gallen found out in a 2013 study.

This means that Swiss families pay twice as much for external childcare as parents in 24 other European countries.

Once the children start school, the contributions are reduced, but are still comparatively high. For example, an after-school place with lunch and afternoon care costs CHF 70 per child per day.

If you employ a trained nanny full-time, you can expect monthly costs of up to CHF 4,500. According to Bütler, it therefore only makes sense to employ a second earner if the net salary of a full-time job after tax and other professional expenses is at least CHF 50,000.

This means that even for well-educated mothers, it is not financially worthwhile to work. Nevertheless, more and more women continue to work after giving birth - the proportion of women not in employment has fallen from around 40 to 20 per cent since 1992. So women in Switzerland are paying to go to work.

Myth 5:

Men and women have the same opportunities on the labour market.

Wrong: Female labour is still paid less or not at all.

The same rigid mechanisms still apply in the world of work as they did 50 years ago: People are still considered productive if they stay at their workplace from early in the morning until late at night, regardless of how efficient they actually are.

«Careers in Germany,» trend researcher Matthias Horx once wrote, "are a competition for attendance times, for communicative presence. After an eight-hour day, managers still have to be available for meetings and agreements at the bar.

Can forget his weekend. Must always be available." It's no different in Switzerland. Hardly any mum can afford to stay at work for twelve hours or hang out with her colleagues after work.

Women rush home to the children after office hours, while it is frowned upon for men to leave the office at 5 p.m. for the children. What's more, men still earn 20 to 30 per cent more than women.

Success at work is more important to most men than their family.

In «typically male professions» - such as in the banking, car or insurance industries - wages are set higher right from the start than in the care sector, for example, where women increasingly look after small children, the sick and the elderly.

Added to this is unpaid work: housework, childcare and caring for relatives in need. In 2013, 8.7 billion hours were worked for this purpose in Switzerland, which corresponds to a monetary value of CHF 401 billion, as calculated by the Federal Statistical Office.

It is predominantly women (62 per cent) who do this unpaid work, while 62 per cent of men do paid work. Because women often work for free or are paid less, they are at risk of poverty in old age, as unpaid or poorly paid work is not pensionable.

Women also receive a smaller pension in old age, even though they have worked all their lives.

Myth 6:

The emancipated woman can easily combine career and family.

Wrong: The career woman with children is the exception.

The image of the professionally successful mother who pursues her career while playfully raising three children is just as ideologised today as the more recent exaggerated image of the tolerant mother who sacrifices herself for her husband and children. Both have little to do with reality.

Even in the former socialist countries, where the structures were designed in such a way that mothers were fully employed, the career woman with children remained the exception.

Whilst women mainly carried out assisting tasks, men had the interesting jobs - men gave orders, women served. The compatibility of family and career is a deceptive claim made by business and politics.

This back and forth between the demands of the world of work and the family is draining - for both fathers and mothers. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to work more and longer.

Switzerland is one of the countries with the highest attendance times.

In the European Union, the appeal of the "dual earner couple" - the integration of both parents into the world of work - has been established for some time now. Both parents should work full-time wherever possible in order to earn their own living, while state benefits are thinned out or abolished.

The call for female labour has nothing to do with an emancipated, self-determined life: it is not about granting women the same rights as men in the world of work or paying them a wage with which they could support a family.

If the economy wants more female employees, it is only to increase the company's profits or the country's economic strength.

And who asks the children?

It is worth noting that the whole debate about agreements is not centred on the welfare of the children. Just 20 years ago, children who had to attend a crèche were pitied. Today, parents who do not have their children looked after by others are looked at askance - even though a study from 2012 even rated the quality of Swiss daycare centres as «average».

There is a lack of staff and financial resources to guarantee high-quality childcare. It is wrong that families have to subordinate themselves to the needs of employers. Children should not be taken away, looked after by others and pushed around just so that their parents are available as labour.

It must be the other way round: The world of work must adapt to the needs of the family. In a family-friendly society, reconciling work and family life must not lead to fathers and mothers working 100 per cent.

Parents should rather opt for the family model that suits them best: who works less, not at all or full-time is a private matter. The same goes for whether they both work part-time. Making this possible would be the task of the state, the economy and society, which should be interested in keeping burnout diagnoses among the employed population as low as possible.

It would therefore be wise to think fundamentally about our working hours. Switzerland is one of the countries with the longest working hours. But does it really make sense for a working day to last eight or eight and a half hours when neurological studies show that people are unable to concentrate for more than four hours a day?

Wouldn't a working day of five or six hours work just as well? In Gothenburg, companies have recently started experimenting with a six-hour working day - with the same salary. Employees at a care home, a hospital, a factory and a tech start-up work just 30 hours a week.

Just 20 years ago, children who had to attend a crèche were pitied.

The result is a real eye-opener: Employees are not only more motivated and less exhausted, but also happier because they have more time for their families. Speaking of Scandinavia: the Danes - the 35-hour week has long been the norm there, as it is in our neighbouring country of France - place family life and leisure time higher than their work.

Anyone who thinks they can impress their boss with long working hours in Denmark is on the wrong track, writes Rahel Leupin, a PhD student who works at Roskilde University and has lived in Denmark with her family for two years, in a blog for the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper.

If you do this, the opposite happens, you get worried looks from colleagues and maybe even a warning from your line manager to please respect family and leisure time. By 4 p.m. at the latest, the office door is closed as a matter of course - even by the boss.

In Denmark, it doesn't even come as a surprise when the head of the IT department of a large bank disappears at 2.30 pm every day because she has four children. Yes, you read that right: the head of the IT department. Four children. Goes home at half past two. In Switzerland, this is the time when the meeting marathon is in full swing