30% of men who telework at least one day a week say they are more involved in household chores than their partners, compared to 51% of women who make the same statement. For their part, only 18% of men who never work from home claim to have a greater burden on domestic tasks than their partners, compared to 50% of women in the same situation.
This is one of the main conclusions drawn from the Teleworking study after the pandemic. Analysis from the perspective of the worker, from the Social Observatory of the ”la Caixa” Foundation. The research project, led by Marta Curull and Laia Maynou, researchers at the University of Barcelona, and by Lídia Farré, from the Institute of Economic Analysis of the CSIC and the Barcelona School of Economics, confirms that the contribution of women to domestic tasks and childcare is very similar regardless of whether they telework or not.
However, the difference between men who work from home, at least one day a week, and those who do not, and their participation in childcare and household chores is significant. Thus, the proportion of men who contribute to these tasks more than their partners is 12 percentage points higher than among the group of men who do not telework, as seen in the following graph:
“The participation of men in household chores and child care, in relation to their partners, is greater among those who telework than among those who do not," highlights the researcher and co-author of the study Lídia Farré. "According to the data collected -he continues-, 30% of men who telework, at least one day a week, declare that they contribute more than their partners to household chores and care, compared to 18% who never telework. Therefore, teleworking is associated with greater participation in domestic production by men.”
If the focus is on childcare, 48% of women who telework say they contribute more than their partners to care activities, while 47% say they do so in a similar proportion. Among men who work from home at least one day a week, 24% say they do more than their partners in children's activities, and 59% say they contribute a similar proportion.
For their part, among men who do not telework, only 12% contribute more than their partners, while 66% report doing so in a similar proportion. Consequently, 22% of men who never telework have less involvement than their partners in childcare. As can be seen in the following graph, this percentage is five points lower among men who can work from home.
The study was carried out in May 2022, two years after the first confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, the researchers wanted to analyze the new work normal and, specifically, the level of acceptance and impact of working from home. To do this, they surveyed 4,000 people between 25 and 50 years old through a questionnaire that also included a discrete choice experiment with which they wanted to know the monetary value that the participants gave to teleworking.
In this way, they found that there are workers who are willing to give up a fraction of their salary in exchange for home office, but the estimates also suggest that the probability of accepting a lower-paid job with the option of teleworking progressively decreases as the the salary penalty.
Thus, when the salary cut is more than 10%, the probability of accepting the job offer with the possibility of teleworking is reduced by more than 20 percentage points. This probability drops almost 40 percentage points when the salary penalty is 35%. The study estimates also reveal that distance to the workplace is an important factor in decision making.
Research results also suggest that skilled workers are more likely to accept jobs that offer the ability to work from home in exchange for a waiver of pay. This is a profile that usually has higher incomes and could have better suitable spaces in which to carry out their functions, which would explain the predisposition to assume a salary penalty in exchange for being able to telework.
Lídia Farré, researcher at the IAE-CSIC, considers that “this result is consistent with the predictions of the salary difference compensation model, where workers are willing to give up part of their salary in exchange for better working conditions, such as option to work from home.”
At the time of the study, 36% of the sample worked from home at least one day a week. Based on this data, the study estimates suggest that teleworking does not have a differentiated incidence depending on gender, but confirm that the educational level and household composition are determinants in the probability of teleworking.
The following graph shows the gap in the probability of teleworking between those who have a college degree and those who do not. Among men with a university degree, 54% do some type of teleworking, while this percentage is only 30% among those without a university degree. The figures are similar among women, 53% among university graduates and 29% among those without a university degree.
Another related fact: 18% of people with a college degree work from home more than three days a week.
Regarding the assessment that teleworkers make of their new work reality, 88% of women and 86% of men agree or strongly agree that remote work improves the balance between family responsibilities and personal.
“Presence at the workplace is associated with time and monetary costs that can be substantially reduced when the option of teleworking is chosen," points out Lídia Farré. "For example, if the time that workers save traveling "When they dedicate their work to family or leisure activities, it is expected that their emotional well-being will increase," he adds.
Workers also value the possibility of reducing costs when working from home. In this sense, 84% of men and 83% of women say that teleworking saves money and time. Furthermore, 83% of women and 79% of men say that doing a home office improves their emotional well-being, as shown in this last graph that follows.
