Publication

This article examines how men and women exploited the work location flexibility enabled by ICT in the context of their family obligations prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We use the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey for 30 European countries and estimate a set of multinomial logistic regression models, with the dependent variable measuring the frequency of home-based work. We find that when using ICT at work, men were more likely to work from home, both occasionally and more frequently whereas women were more likely to engage in sporadic home-based work but less likely to do so frequently. These results are particularly true for parents, except for single mothers of young children. As single mothers cannot rely on partners’ support in combining paid work and care, the advantages of home-based telework (time savings, flexible time organization) outweigh the negative consequences of this work arrangement.