A new study suggests that contrary to most surveys, people are actually more stressed at home than at work. Researchers measured people’s cortisol, which is a stress marker, while they were at work and while they were at home and found it higher at what is supposed to be a place of refuge.

    “Further contradicting conventional wisdom, we found that women as well as men have lower levels of stress at work than at home,” writes one of the researchers, Sarah Damaske. In fact women even say they feel better at work, she notes. “It is men, not women, who report being happier at home than at work.” Another surprise is that the findings hold true for both those with children and without, but more so for nonparents. This is why people who work outside the home have better health.

    What the study doesn’t measure is whether people are still doing work when they’re at home, whether it is household work or work brought home from the office. For many men, the end of the workday is a time to kick back. For women who stay home, they never get to leave the office. And for women who work outside the home, they often are playing catch-up-with-household tasks. With the blurring of roles, and the fact that the home front lags well behind the workplace in making adjustments for working women, it’s not surprising that women are more stressed at home.

    But it’s not just a gender thing. At work, people pretty much know what they’re supposed to be doing: working, making money, doing the tasks they have to do in order to draw an income. The bargain is very pure: Employee puts in hours of physical or mental labor and employee draws out life-sustaining moola.

    On the home front, however, people have no such clarity. Rare is the household in which the division of labor is so clinically and methodically laid out. There are a lot of tasks to be done, there are inadequate rewards for most of them. Your home colleagues—your family—have no clear rewards for their labor; they need to be talked into it, or if they’re teenagers, threatened with complete removal of all electronic devices. Plus, they’re your family. You cannot fire your family. You never really get to go home from home.

    So it’s not surprising that people are more stressed at home. Not only are the tasks apparently infinite, the co-workers are much harder to motivate.

答案精析：根据blurring和working women可定位至原文第三段最后一句。由第三段最后两句可知，对于那些在外面工作的女性来说，她们经常回到家还要做家务。随着角色的模糊，以及家庭在为职业女性做调整方面远远落后于工作场所，女性在家压力更大也就不足为奇了。由此可知，职业女性不仅要在外工作，回到家中还要做家务。故正确答案为A。

错项排除：原文中第三段第二句出现了kick back（休息），但该句说的是对于男性来说，家是一个休息的地方，而非职业女性，故A项错误。根据原文可知，职业女性确实有很多家务活要做，但这只是她们角色模糊的一个方面而已，因为她们既要在外工作，又要在家做家务才导致了角色模糊，仅一方面并不能体现出角色的模糊，C项内容以偏概全，故排除。原文第三句出现了never get to leave the office，但该句针对的是women who stay home（家庭主妇），此处的office指的是家庭，和working women（职业女性）不相关，故D项错误。

长难句分析：With the blurring of roles, and the fact that the home front lags well behind the workplace in making adjustments for working women, it’s not surprising that women are more stressed at home.

本句的主干为…it’s not surprising…，为主系表结构，it为形式主语，真正的主语是后面that引导的主语从句。句首的With引导伴随状语，其中包含了两个并列成分，一个是the blurring…，另一个是the fact…，后面的that引导同位语从句，用于解释the fact。同位语从句中的in making adjustments…用于解释在哪方面是落后的。

句意为：随着角色的模糊，以及家庭在为职业女性做调整方面远远落后于工作场所，女性在家压力更大也就不足为奇了。