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Parents’ stress levels spike as pandemic drags on

April 19, 2020

The new pressures on working parents to be full-time employees and full-time homeschool teachers while protecting their families from the pandemic are leading to exhaustion — with no end in sight.

Why it matters: Working parents make up roughly one-third of the U.S. workforce. The longer the stay-at-home orders continue, the higher the risk that these workers will be on the verge of emotional and cognitive burnout before they can return to their offices.


The big picture: The multiple stresses people are experiencing "will result in a secondary epidemic of burnouts and stress-related absenteeism in the latter half of 2020," Elke Van Hoof, a professor of health psychology and primary care psychology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, writes for the World Economic Forum.