‘To be able to commute to work can be a positive thing because it means you don’t have to uproot your family with every career move but it can also be a strain on your relationship,’ said author Erika Sandow to The Local.
According to the study, 11 percent of Swedes have a journey to work that consists of a 45-minute commute or longer. Many commuters have small children and are in a relationship. Most are men.
‘One of the long-term risks with commuting is that it can sustain gender-based stereotypes both at home and in the labour market,’ Sandow said.
In families where the man commutes, the woman is often forced to take a less qualified job closer to home, which means both less money as well as a larger share of the responsibility for kids and household.
Although women commuters also experience an increase in salary and career prospects, earlier studies have shown that they experience more stress and feel less successful career-wise than commuting men.
The risk of divorce goes up by 40 percent for commuters and the risk is the highest in the first few years of commuting.
According to the study, most people that start commuting to work continue doing so and more than half that travel a long distance to work today have done so for more than five years.
Five years also seems to be a wathershed because according to the study, most commuters and their families have managed to adapt to the situation by then.”
Read the full article here.