Teleworking, task sharing and work-life balance: A gender issue? Theoretical approach

Aim/Purpose – The impact of teleworking on the work-life balance is still not clear. Since women are the ones who tend to assume most of the domestic tasks, this paper examines whether teleworking can lead to improvement in the repartition of family and domestic duties and whether it can benefit women in terms of work-life balance.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a theoretical one, based on a literature review.
Findings –On the one hand, the flexibility offered by teleworking during the health crisis may have enabled women to achieve a better work-life balance, by offering them the possibility of not having to stop working despite the family responsibilities they had to assume. On the other hand, the unequal distribution of unpaid domestic work, which has continued and even increased during the crisis, has forced many women to quit their job.
Research implications/limitations – The health crisis has shown that as long as teleworking is not organized in a way that challenges the assumption that the home is a female environment while the office is a male environment, gender inequalities will always prevail between home and work.
Originality/value/contribution – This paper contributes to the literature on teleworking by highlighting that generalizing teleworking without taking gender aspects into consideration may be harmful for female workers.