Who is better adjusted to work from home - men or women?

Men and women handle remote work differently

How men and women handle remote work depends on many factors as well as the home dynamics.

It may seem that this question is speculative, but that’s actually not the case.

Find out why women handle remote work slightly "better" than men and what the pain points are.

Whether by choice or enforced due to the global pandemic, office workers have become adept at the notion of remote work.

The question still remains: Who is better adjusted to working from home - men or women?

According to recent research conducted by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on 1,500 female and 1,363 male remote workers, the question of whether professional success depends on gender, ethnicity or industry, the results are quite interesting. 

Work-life balance

Work from home affects men and women differently, especially when they have children.

While work from home has been a blessing for functioning parents, a deeply embedded sex inequality manifests in division of house, family and care-giving tasks after they finish with the paid labour.

Research shows that women normally do an additional 4-6 hours of work around the house, the so-called “second shift”, after completing their job duties.

Especially during the pandemic when facilities such as day care, elderly care, and cleaning solutions weren’t available.

Daily organising, home schooling, together with choices concerning their relative's health as well as wellness in the middle of a worldwide health crisis  disproportionately falls down to women.

Ladies that need to function outside the residence in addition to looking after children, specifically without a companion in the house, encounter a whole different set of challenging circumstances. 

The outcome is that females are more likely to feel “worn out” than males, and that has negatively impacted their experience functioning from home.

“Some 79 percent of guys stated they have had a favourable work-from-home experience throughout the pandemic, compared to just 37 percent of ladies”, according to McKinsey, the co-author of "Females in the Workplace”.

They could not manage the extra responsibility that was coming on the home front at the same time that they were attempting to maintain the task front. 

The expectations and impact of remote work on men and women

Women of different ethnic backgrounds who work remotely forecast their career paths differently. 

In terms of expecting fewer networking opportunities due to working from home, 39% of Asian and Asian-American are most pessimistic, 25 % of Caucasian and women of mixed ethnicity expect a decrease, while only 14% of Black and 12% of Hispanic/Latina ethnicity think that remote work will affect positive business collaboration.

Women have been leaving the labor force to care for children and other family members at a much higher price than men - a step that can impact their careers and earning power, particularly when they return.

Some are afraid that with the popularisation of remote jobs, these concerns will absolutely continue, even after the pandemic's most severe influences lower.

In specific circumstances when one of the partners needs to quit work and stay at home, normally the woman is expected to do so, even in the rare circumstance when she’s earning more than the husband.

The reason behind this “logic” is that mothers are seen differently than the fathers.

These women are expected to take more days off and are less dedicated to work as men just because they have children.

On the other hand, men are less perceived as “fathers” by their male colleagues and business relations.

Flexible work can be better suited for women

Long before the pandemic, ladies were asking for flexible remote work. Typically, they take the positive angle - providing the capability to do residential work they do anyway and allowing them to avoid an office-centric model more likely to benefit people surpasses its negative aspects.

And as more individuals in general work from one or more locations, any remaining qualms concerning remote jobs will likely diffuse.

The “second shift” existed prior to the pandemic, and realistically, will certainly continue to exist after it.

Remote job is an acquiescence to what is a truth for many women: doing a lot more.

There are so many things we as a society can do to make things easier for women working from home.

This is a subject for another article though.

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