Are gender inequalities in levels of work/life stress apparent among those positioned at the powerful top of society’s hierarchy, and if so, why? This proposal outlines a research project that investigates the mechanisms behind gender and individual-level work/life stress among political elites (national parliamentarians) using a comparative perspective between three country cases: UK, Sweden and Germany. The research project will build on empirical investigations from a self-collected survey data material covering UK, Swedish and German national parliamentarians. An original, micro-level survey data set that provides information about subjective work/life stress (and background variables) and covers the finite population of British national parliamentarians is to be collected as part of this research project. An original micro-level data set covering Swedish and German national parliamentarians already exists (collected as part of my previous research), but the variables related to the topic of work/life stress have never before been analyzed. Parts of this political elite data will further be matched to existing, large-scale databases from the European Social Survey, consisting of representative samples of general citizens of the three nations, for the purpose of reference comparisons between the political elites and average citizens of respective country.The research project will be carried out by the applicant at Birkbeck, University of London (UK), Department of Politics, Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, under the supervision of Professor Joni Lovenduski.