A growing number of working women are suffering from burnout as a result of trying to balance work and home commitments, according to a new survey – and new technology is only making matters worse.
Research among 1,000 women for Good Housekeeping magazine has found that one in three working women are regularly driven to exhaustion because of the competing pressures of work and home commitments.
The problem is even more acute for those living in London, where the figure rises to almost half (47 per cent).
Long hours, relationship pressures and transport chaos combine to make life increasingly difficult, particularly for working mothers, and one in ten of those surveyed said they felt depressed.
The misery of the daily commute was one of the biggest complaints, with a third of women saying they were angry about the government's handling of transport issues, rising to four out of ten of those subjected to London's daily transport grind.
Commuting was so onerous for seven per cent that they actually give up their jobs as a result. A further one in ten were Actively considering doing the same.
But other gripes were aimed for technology designed to make life easier.
Seven out of ten said that the advent of mobile phones and email only makes their lives worse, leaving many suffering from what the magazine dubs "frantic life syndrome".
One in three working women said they could not live without their mobile phone for more than a day, a figure that increases to almost six out of ten among 16 to 24-year- olds.
More than one in ten complain that having their mobile phone means that "my life is no longer my own" and that having a mobile meant their employer regularly called them with out-of-hours work queries.
June Walton, deputy editor of Good Housekeeping, said, "Women are doing more than ever before and society demands standards of human output synonymous with huge advances in technology.
"It's time for us to take stock and reclaim our lives."