We need to Make Sure Telecommuting Does Not Exacerbate Gender Disparity
By David Fang, Sonia Kang and Sarah Kaplan
Global authorities such as WHO and the International Labour Organization have proposed interventions to improve the telecommuting experience, such as establishing work–life boundary strategies, designing ergonomic remote workplaces, and maintaining regular social interactions. However, the potential negative gendered consequences remain under-acknowledged. When women work from home, they report a disproportionate increase in domestic labour, childcare-related disruptions, and declines in productivity and mental health. If not addressed, teleworking might exacerbate existing gender inequities in career advancement, health, and rights, among others, especially as global telecommuting rates continue to climb throughout 2022 and beyond.
In general, women are more likely to telecommute than men, both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and women are more likely to report mental health issues. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, 62·3% of telecommuting women (vs 42·6% of telecommuting men) in the USA reported two or more new mental health issues after transitioning to remote work. These women reported more depression, loneliness, anxiety, and stress, and sharper declines in job satisfaction, engagement, efficiency, and work–life balance, when compared with men. Additionally, women reported higher rates of fatigue than men, due to extra hours spent on unpaid labour (eg, housework, childcare, and eldercare). Because telecommuters are generally paid and promoted less than office workers, the increasing gender gap in telecommuting could exacerbate existing disparities in pay and promotion that women already experience relative to men, in turn negatively affecting women's health.
Intersectional factors including socioeconomic and partner employment status can heighten telecommuting-related gender inequity. For instance, mothers with lower earnings and fewer resources to hire domestic helpers, for example, experience steeper increases and heavier burdens of domestic labour8 and more health issues when compared with high-income mothers, due to their lower income buffer and job security. These consequences are exacerbated for single mothers, who bear substantially higher burdens of domestic labour than telecommuting single fathers and members of dual telecommuting couples.
All of this said, telecommuting can empower gender equity if used effectively. For instance, telecommuting can help women maintain their usual work hours after childbirth. Before the pandemic, mothers who worked remotely (typically in private sector jobs) experienced a smaller differential in paid labour hours compared with mothers who worked in person, due to their increased work flexibility. However, the negative gendered consequences (eg, asymmetry in domestic labour, childcare, and health outcomes) must be monitored and eliminated to ensure that telecommuting does not end up doing more harm than good. To this end, we suggest three organisational solutions.
Read the full article in The Lancet here: We need to Make Sure Telecommuting Does Not Exacerbate Gender Disparity