Working from home, work-family conflict, and the role of gender and gender role attitudes

Previous studies have shown that societal norms around gender roles can shape gender-based outcomes of working from home. This paper extends these findings to see how individuals' gender role attitudes can moderate the relationship between working from home and work-family conflict, but again with varying outcomes for men and women. We use data from around 3150 employees who participated in wave 10 (2017-2018) of the German Family Panel Survey (pairfam). Results suggest that compared to employees with fixed work locations, those who work from home report higher levels of family-to-work conflict, but not higher work-to-family conflict. Positive associations between working from home and both types of work - family conflict are found only for women, not for men. Specifically, the positive association between working from home and family-to-work conflict is mainly present among women with traditional gender role attitudes, while the positive association between working from home and work-to-family conflict is mainly present among women with egalitarian gender role attitudes. No such variation, however, was found for men. This study highlights the importance of taking gender and gender role attitudes into account when examining the consequences of working from home.

Automated summary

This study finds that societal norms around gender roles can shape the outcomes of working from home. The results show that compared to employees with fixed work locations, those who work from home are more likely to experience family-to-work conflict, especially for women. Women with traditional gender role attitudes are more likely to experience family-to-work conflict when working from home, while women with egalitarian gender role attitudes are more likely to experience work-to-family conflict when working from home. No such associations were found for men.