A new study revealed the “gendered differences” in how working from home and flexible schedules affect moms and dads
File this one under news that will surprise no woman ever: a new study shows that in dual-income families, women who work from home get a worse deal than men. What researchers found is that when women are working from home, they have to do their job tasks and handle more of the home and family responsibilities—but the same is naturally not true for men who work from home.
The study, conducted by researchers at Ohio State University, included two surveys, both done during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first survey was given to 172 married, dual-income families in China, each of whom had at least one child. The second survey was given to 60 dual-income families in South Korea, some of whom had children and some of whom didn’t. In both surveys, the couples were asked to evaluate how many work, home, and family tasks they completed each day for 14 consecutive workdays.
Researchers found that both men and women completed more home and family tasks when working from home than they did when they had to go into an office. But when women worked from home, men completed fewer home and family tasks than when women worked in an office. When men worked from home, women did not complete fewer home and family tasks than when men worked in an office.
In other words, when women in the study were working from home, they shouldered more of the burden of taking care of the home and family. That trend was not reflected when men worked from home.
“These findings suggest husbands can provide more resources and support for their wives to complete remote work tasks when they have flexibility in scheduling their work time and procedure,” the study’s lead author, Jasmine Hu, wrote.
Ask any woman who works from home, and she’ll tell you how difficult it can be to maintain boundaries between work, family, and home responsibilities. This study is just further proof that these challenges fall unfairly on women, and it’s time for men to step up.
