Working from home – what does it mean for women?

Flexible working is on the rise, and can be good for all employees, not least women, by allowing mothers to stay in work without necessarily having to reduce their working hours. However, flexible working could reinforce traditional gender roles, by giving mothers more time at home, which they may be expected to spend on housework and childcare, while fathers typically expand the time they spend working.

We wanted to look at flexible working arrangements that give workers control over when or where they work – flexitime, working from home, and schedule control – and to see what flexible working meant for the division of housework and childcare, especially in relation to occupational class. Research has shown that, even when women earn more or work longer hours, they still do more housework and childcare than men – allowing both partners to retain their gender identities.

Gender and class

We know from existing research that fathers’ working hours and commuting times are generally longer than those of mothers, so flexible working could help fathers, in particular, to do more housework and childcare – but this doesn’t seem to happen. The link between flexible working and more housework/childcare is mostly true for women, not men.

Flexible working doesn’t change our assumptions about who is ‘supposed to’ do childcare/housework, it simply removes some of the obstacles (such as time) that prevent women taking on both paid and domestic work. Gender norms may stop men from using flexible working arrangements to take on more domestic responsibilities, while flexible working may allow mothers to both work and retain their traditional domestic role – reinforcing the idea of the man as ‘breadwinner’.

Other research has shown that workers in lower-income jobs tend to have more traditional attitudes to gender roles, while workers in higher-skilled/income roles are likely to have more egalitarian views. A crucial factor in this distinction could be that the better paid have access to more resources such as hiring additional domestic support, such as a cleaner or a nanny.

At the same time, people on lower incomes may have less access to flexible work – but if they’re offered flexible working, both women and men in lower-income occupations may need to use these arrangements to perform more housework/childcare, which may result in a more equal division of housework for this group. By contrast, workers in higher-income occupations, particularly men, may feel pressured to work longer hours even when working flexibly, and to reduce their housework/childcare, resulting in more traditional divisions of labour compared to their lower-income counterparts.

Using the data

We used Waves 2, 4, 6, and 8 of Understanding Society, which included information about participants’ flexible working arrangements and the distribution of housework between couples who lived together. We concentrated on 874 heterosexual couples where both partners worked throughout that time (2010-17), and had at least one child under 12 – because the availability of flexible working and the amount of housework are significantly different for this group.

We looked at the number of routine domestic chores each person was responsible for – including grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and washing/ironing – and whether they were able to use any of eight types of flexible working (including part-time work, flexitime, compressed hours, and working from home). We also took into account factors such as their income, education, attitudes to gender roles, and number of children in the household.

The results

Women did more routine domestic chores than men, and spent more time doing them (13+ hours a week, compared to 5.5). More women than men used flexitime (15% vs. 11%), while more men (7% to 5%) worked from home. Women were more likely to say they had no control over their schedules, and men were more likely to report ‘a lot’ of schedule control. Those in higher-income jobs were more likely to use flexitime or to work from home than those in lower-paying jobs.

Flexitime allowed for a more egalitarian division of housework, but there were some striking differences between men and women. Being able to control their schedule increased women’s involvement in care and housework, while working from home (surprisingly) reduced the amount of housework they did. In contrast, men tended to reduce their childcare responsibilities when working from home.

Flexible working and childcare

Mothers in higher-paid jobs were more likely to report that fathers were more involved in childcare – and this was true for women in lower-paid jobs who made use of flexitime. Women in lower-paid jobs who worked from home, though, were significantly more likely to be responsible for childcare.

It may be that homeworking allows mothers in lower-paid jobs to combine work and childcare, allowing the father to get more, or better-paid, work. For women in higher-paid work, working from home was more likely to mean sharing childcare. This may show that working from home allows these women to have a career, and stay involved in childcare, but not increase their share of it.

There was a clear link between schedule control and mothers being responsible for childcare. Women in lower-paid roles were significantly less likely to report sharing childcare with fathers. Looking at fathers, those in lower-paid jobs were more likely to take on routine housework if they used flexible working.

What we’ve learnt

Flexible working arrangements vary in terms of the amount of control they allow over work, and have different effects, depending on class and gender. Flexitime, for example, is fairly restrictive in the freedom it allows, and was linked to more equal division of unpaid domestic work for mothers – especially among the lower-paid.

High levels of schedule control or working from home allow for more blurring of the boundaries between work and home life, and were generally linked to unequal divisions of housework and childcare. Again, this was especially true for the lower paid. Mothers in managerial and professional roles were more likely to report their partners being involved in childcare, regardless of whether they used flexible working arrangements.

What might this mean for policy?

Flexible working is hailed as helping with both work-life balance and gender inequality in the labour market – and that can be true when resources to meet childcare and housework demands are limited. From a policy perspective, strengthening people’s rights to work flexibly would help the lower paid in particular. However, some arrangements, especially those that allow more blurring of the home/work boundary, can reinforce gender roles, and see women both working and taking on more domestic chores.

It may be that couples in lower-paid jobs favour a traditional division of labour along gender lines, but can’t achieve this because of limited resources – and that higher-paid couples have more egalitarian aims, but can’t make them happen because of their career commitments. We need to see more research in this area in order to find out the best arrangements to encourage gender equality.

Finally, policy makers need to be aware of the pitfalls and introduce measures to change the culture around gender and work. More generous paternity leave, for example, can shift society’s ideas around whose role it is to raise children – and reducing working hours could help to change norms in the culture of work. It’s important that expanding flexible working practices doesn’t exacerbate gender inequality, either at work or at home.

Read the original research