Teleworking and Gender

Huws U, Podro S, Gunnarsson E, Weijers T, Arvanitaki K, Trova V | Report 317 | Institute for Employment Studies | Sep 1996

Teleworking (using information and telecommunications technology to work from a distance) is becoming an increasingly important part of working life. But does it makes a positive or a negative contribution to sexual equality?

Does it confirm the stereotype that a woman's place is in the home? Or does it allow both men and women a new freedom to rearrange their working lives around family needs?

Ursula Huws has been studying teleworking for nearly two decades. Here, she and her colleagues review the evidence and present the results of a unique survey which, for the first time, compares the experiences of male and female teleworkers from the same occupational group.