Deloitte study: Half of working women experience more stress than a year ago

Half of working women experience a higher stress level than a year ago, and a similar share (49 percent, higher than 2023) say they don’t feel supported by their employer to balance work responsibilities with personal life commitments, according to the Deloitte Women @ Work 2024 study, conducted globally. In contrast, the study shows that the share of women who feel burned out has fallen to a quarter, compared with more than a third in 2023 and nearly half in 2022.

Among the study participants, 16 percent changed employers over the past year (more than in the two previous years combined), mainly due to unsatisfactory pay, along with poor work/life balance and a lack of flexibility in working hours. In fact, only one out of ten participants feel she can openly talk with her manager about work/life balance, nearly all of them (95 percent) feel that requesting or taking advantage of flexible working opportunities will affect their chances of getting a promotion, and 93 percent don’t think their workload would be adjusted accordingly if they requested flexible work options.

Regarding private life commitments, although most of the surveyed women work full time (88 percent), half of them say they bear the main responsibility for childcare (50 percent), even of those who are the primary earner in their household. At the same time, 37 percent of women who are in relationships feel they need to prioritize their partner’s careers over their own, including nearly 10 percent of those who are the primary earner in their family.

“The study’s findings indicate that employers have to consider women’s specificities – childcare and other caring responsibilities, social and cultural background -, when developing workforce policies, in order to support them overcome the challenges related to these particularities and to help them reach their full potential at work, by offering them equal opportunities with men. Romania is on the right track in this respect, as it has one of the lowest gender pay gaps, of 4.5 percent, compared to the European average of 12.7 percent (according to Eurostat data for 2022), and the share of women in leading positions is nearly 50 percent,” said Alexandra Smedoiu, Partner, Deloitte Romania, and coordinator of the SheXO Club program.

According to the study, organizations viewed as “Gender Equality Leaders” remain a rarity – only 6 percent of the women surveyed work for one of them. They are more optimistic about their career prospects, and therefore more likely to stay with their employer for longer term. Moreover, more than 60 percent of women working for Gender Equality Leaders plan to stay with their employer for more than three years, compared to 41 percent of the rest of the participants, and 92 percent of them want to advance to senior leadership positions within the organization.

Among the study participants, only 7 percent plan to stay with their employer for more than five years, due to learning and development opportunities, career advancement potential and positive work/life balance.

In terms of working patterns, more than 40 percent of the study participants say their employer has recently implemented a return-to-office policy, requiring a quarter of them to be on site full time, while the rest of them, to be in the office only on certain days. Of those required to return to office full time, a fifth say it has made them less productive.

Now in its fourth edition, the Deloitte Women @ Work 2024 study was conducted among approximately 5,000 women in ten countries around the world. The report provides a global perspective on women’s views on their experiences in the working environment. Most of the respondents work full time (88 percent), in multiple fields and occupy various level positions, including management roles.