Mental load, invisible work, “extra shifts.” Whatever the new terminology, unpaid work in the domestic sphere, performed primarily by women, poses a hidden burden that erodes the sleep and mental health of those tasked with it. This work is essential to keeping everyone’s daily lives on track, from preparing meals and clean clothes to getting to school and doctor’s appointments, but its importance is often ignored, undermined, and even downplayed by the societies that depend on it.
Add paid employment to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster, leaving those juggling both in quiet exhaustion and mental anguish. This situation is often described as time poverty, a state in which people are so busy with paid and unpaid work that they do not have enough time for daily life. However, much of the research on this topic has focused only on paid work hours, and the impact of total work hours, including paid and unpaid work hours, has not been fully examined.
Therefore, a research group led by Professor Akiko Morimoto of the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Nursing and Professor Naho Sugita of the Graduate School of Economics conducted a comprehensive investigation into the relationship between total daily working hours, non-restorative sleep, and mental health. A self-administered mailed questionnaire containing questions focused on demographic variables, total paid and unpaid work hours, sleep quality, and mental health was distributed to five cities in Osaka Prefecture. Of the 12,446 participants, the responses of 3,959 healthy Japanese workers between the ages of 40 and 64 (1,900 men and 2,059 women) were analyzed.
The results showed that although women worked fewer paid hours than men, they spent more time in unpaid work, resulting in longer working hours. There is a particularly large difference in the participation rate in housework, with approximately 90% of women and 40% of men participating in housework.
Furthermore, the longer the working hours, the greater the risk of non-restorative sleep for both men and women. They were also correlated with an increased risk of poor mental health in women.
For women, total daily working hours are a more important predictor of sleep deprivation and poor mental health than paid work hours alone. ”
Akiko Morimoto, Professor, Graduate School of Nursing, Osaka Metropolitan University
Professor Sugita concluded, “Going forward, it is hoped that quantifying the total working hours per day and reflecting it in policy planning and system design will lead to reducing health disparities and achieving gender equality.”
This study Social science and medicine.
sauce:
Osaka Metropolitan University
Reference magazines:
Akira Morimoto others. (2026). Association between total daily working hours, including unpaid caregiving and domestic work, and non-restorative sleep and mental health in middle-aged Japanese men and women: A cross-sectional study. Social science and medicine. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.118965. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953626000407?via%3Dihub
