Gender differences in working at home and time use patterns: evidence from Australia

Abstract

Despite a wealth of research on working at home, few studies have examined the effects of working at home in relation to its regularity and fewer still have used time use studies to do so. Using data from the 2006 Australian Time Use Survey this article investigates the association between working at home, gender and time use, in relation to amount of time spent in paid work, unpaid work and recreational labour, as well as multi-tasking, fragmentation of time and scheduling flexibility. It examines time use patterns according to whether employees do no work at home or whether they work at home rarely, occasionally or regularly. Results show there is an association between working at home and time in paid and unpaid work and that this differs by the regularity of working at home and gender. Working at home does not create more time for recreational labour, although it may help women juggle work and family.

Keywords

employees gender homework telework time use work and family work at home work-life balance

Introduction

In recent years there has been renewed interest in the concept of working at home (also referred to as homework and telework), with its potential to offer workplace flexibility hotly debated among industry, media, policy-makers and academics. Working at home is argued to offer a range of benefits, including making it easier to juggle work and non-work activities, such as family responsibilities or leisure time (e.g. Baines and Gelder, 2003), since it can provide greater control and flexibility around the pace and timing of work. As such, working at home is now available to many employees as part of a wider suite of flexible working options (e.g. Boulin et al., 2006); in Australia, 24 per cent of the workforce work at least some hours at home (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). However, working at home is prevalent among a diverse range of people and it is unlikely that it offers equal potential for flexibility across groups where it is prevalent, including: low skilled workers on low wages; high skilled workers with high levels of agency; and self-employed people (Ammons and Markham, 2004; Bailey and Kurland, 2002; Felstead et al., 2001; Nätti et al., 2011). Research also shows that time spent on unpaid work and in leisure – and indeed working at home – are gendered. This article therefore examines the relationship between working at home and time use patterns by gender.

Although a substantial literature on the nature and effects of working at home exists, most of it is either small qualitative studies focusing on those who work exclusively from home, or quantitative studies comparing effects and outcomes of working at home versus site-based work in specific industries, occupations and organizations. A limited number of studies use nationally representative datasets but few have utilized the wealth of data available from time use studies (for an exception, see Nätti et al., 2011). This is a significant gap, addressed in this article, since time use studies offer the opportunity to examine the relationship between working at home and time use patterns in a number of ways. Time use studies are self-reported diaries that detail how individuals spend their time over a given number of days, recording what activities they do, when, where, how long for, who with and whether they were doing anything else at the same time (multi-tasking). Such studies are also particularly useful for identifying gender differences in time use patterns.

The working at home literature predominantly focuses on paid (employment) and unpaid work (domestic labour and childcare), with little consideration of other aspects of ‘life’. Ransome (2007) suggests we also examine ‘recreational labour’, which includes sleep, leisure, self-care and socializing. Ransome (2007) argues that paid and unpaid work are both necessary labour, whereas recreational labour ‘is performed through practices of leisure, pleasure and enjoyment’, is more open and subjective and more likely ‘freely chosen’ (2007: 378). Of particular significance for this article is the notion that employees need leisure time to detach from work (Sonnentag, 2001) and that leisure time may be gendered in both amount and quality (Craig and Mullan, 2013; Sullivan, 1997).

This article addresses these issues by examining:

whether the amount of time spent in paid work, unpaid work (domestic work and childcare) and recreational labour (personal care, leisure and sleep) differs by working at home arrangements; and

the extent to which working at home is associated with flexible time use patterns, including multi-tasking, fragmentation and scheduling of paid work time.

Amount and flexibility in time use are important features of how individuals experience time. They are particularly interesting against a background that on the one hand suggests working at home may better enable employees to integrate their work and home lives; and on the other indicates that the blurring of boundaries that can occur when people work at home may be a source of stress and a challenge to managing work and non-work activities. To examine nuances in time use patterns, four working at home (WAH) arrangements are compared: no WAH on diary day; WAH rarely – worked at home on diary day, but do not usually; WAH occasionally – worked at home on diary day and usually do so for less than 50 per cent of employment hours; and WAH regularly – worked at home on diary day and do so for 50 per cent or more of employment hours. Because much of the literature points to the gendered take-up and effects of working at home, the article also examines whether this differs by gender.

Effects of working at home on time use patterns

As noted above, working at home is argued to offer a range of benefits, most notably making it easier to juggle work and life (Baines and Gelder, 2003; Hill et al., 2003; Redman et al., 2009; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). This is largely because it is seen to provide greater control and flexibility in relation to the pace and timing of work. Working at home is believed to enable scheduling flexibility (Kurland and Bailey, 1999; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003), for example scheduling work hours around children’s school times (Demerouti et al., 2014). It is also understood to reduce time-based work-family conflict (Ammons and Markham, 2004); create time savings, for example less time commuting (Hill et al., 2003), not getting dressed, finding ways to perform work and home tasks simultaneously, such as taking care of children while working (Ammons and Markham, 2004); and minimize workplace interruptions, particularly if it is an occasional arrangement (Bailey and Kurland, 2002). Working at home is also thought to have a positive effect on job satisfaction and work autonomy (Kurland and Bailey, 1999; Redman et al., 2009). Maruyama et al. (2009), in a single organization study, concluded that working at home provided greater autonomy over when to work and that the ability to use hours flexibly was the most important factor in balancing work and life demands. This may explain Baruch’s (2000) finding that working at home may be an alternative to opting out of the workforce when traditional working arrangements cannot accommodate both work and family demands. Arguably, however, many workers require workplace autonomy in order to work at home (e.g. Felstead et al., 2001).

The positive effects of working at home are contested (Morganson et al., 2010; Sullivan and Smithson, 2007), with a number of negative implications highlighted such as professional and social isolation and diminished career progression (Kurland and Bailey, 1999; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003). Many who work at home are also thought to work long or extended hours (Golden, 2008; Nätti et al., 2011). Peters and Van der Lippe (2007) suggest that longer working hours among those who work at home may be attributable to the lack of ‘checks and balances’ such as workload comparison with co-workers.

Significantly, both spatial and temporal boundaries between work and home are probably blurred for those who work at home, which may be challenging for some workers (Ammons and Markham, 2004; Berke, 2003; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Increased boundary work may be particularly detrimental to managing work and non-work activities. For example, employees working at home are more likely to mix paid employment with domestic work and childcare during conventional hours, to have their work time interrupted by other tasks and responsibilities and to extend their working hours into the evening (Hill et al., 2003). Such mixing of tasks may be referred to as multi-tasking (doing two or more activities simultaneously) or time fragmentation (switching repeatedly between tasks or having one activity continuously interrupted by another) and may either be a result or consequence of time pressure. While doing two things at once seemingly allows people to get more done in a limited amount of time (Offer and Schneider, 2010), Rubinstein et al. (2001) found that there are time costs involved in switching between tasks. Performing work and family roles in the same place may therefore increase rather than reduce stress, especially when non-work demands for attention coincide with job deadlines (Ammons and Markham, 2004). Bittman and Wajcman (2000) argue that both multi-tasking and fragmentation of time have a negative impact on the quality of how time is experienced. They and others (Bianchi and Milkie, 2010; Sayer, 2007; Sullivan and Gershuny, 2013) have also found multi-tasking and/or time fragmentation to be highly gendered. Therefore this article examines both multi-tasking and fragmentation of employment, concepts described further in the method section.

As Sullivan and Smithson (2007) note, perhaps the most important conclusion is that scheduling flexibility and the blurring of home-work boundaries should not be regarded as intrinsically positive, not least because the meaning of work-life balance varies from person to person (Maruyama et al., 2009). In other words, for some people the interaction and blurring of work and home is inappropriate and therefore stressful when it occurs, whereas for others integrating work and home may be more legitimate and therefore support them to manage work and non-work. To some extent, this experience depends on a range of personal, household and work characteristics and circumstances (Demerouti et al., 2014; Felstead and Jewson, 2000), a number of which are discussed below.

Gender

The literature suggests gender is one of the most significant variables affecting the experience of working at home (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Although working at home has been heralded as enabling a breakdown of traditional gender roles via the lack of separation between work and family (Silver, 1993) this has not materialized. In fact, in many cases working at home has reinforced the domestic burden of women and perpetuated the marginalization of female employment (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Sullivan and Smithson (2007), for example, found that working at home supported gender equity in households that were already egalitarian and made minimal difference in more traditional households. Research on other flexible work arrangements echoes this sentiment (Craig and Powell, 2011; Gambles et al., 2006).

Ammons and Markham (2004) suggest women may find it particularly hard to maintain boundaries given gendered demands and expectations around domestic work and care. Such responsibilities make it difficult to avoid interruptions to and fragmentation of employment activities (see also Mann and Holdsworth, 2003). From their qualitative study, Sullivan and Smithson (2007) concluded that flexibility was seen as beneficial to women working at home because it facilitated their domestic work and mothering role. Employment may even be combined simultaneously with domestic work and care. Working at home while supervising children, for example, may enable employed parents to have greater presence in their children’s lives (Callister and Singley, 2004). For men, the flexibility of working at home is more likely to be seen as a means of controlling their paid work, although it may enable them to ‘help’ more with domestic work and childcare and spend more time with their family (Sullivan and Smithson, 2007). In other words, women may be more likely to work at home to accommodate work and family demands, while men may be more likely to work at home to facilitate additional employment time. These findings are echoed elsewhere with research indicating working at home is a less common strategy for juggling work and non-work among men than women, particularly those with children (Berke, 2003; Hilbrecht et al., 2008). Sullivan and Smithson (2007) conclude, however, that differences among people who work at home are less about gender and more about dependent children. Also, on a positive note, Felstead and Jewson (2000) argue that given the gendered nature of domestic work, working at home may provide women with an opportunity to exercise power and control.

Differences in working at home arrangements

Another key indicator of the experience of working at home is the proportion of working time spent at home (Sullivan, 2003). Evidence suggests that people who typically work at home do so infrequently, for example a few days a month or to supplement site- or office-based work (Bailey and Kurland, 2002; Haddon and Brynin, 2005). Despite this, research has focused primarily on people who work at home regularly or full-time, leaving a significant gap, as noted by Morganson et al. (2010). This article addresses this gap, as the few studies that have examined this issue have found substantial differences between those who work at home regularly and those who work at home occasionally. For example, Felstead et al. (2001) found that among those working mainly at home, women outnumber men, while the opposite was true among those who work at home less regularly. Peters and Van der Lippe’s (2007) Dutch study examined working at home’s potential for reducing time pressure. They categorized workers according to the frequency of working at home since this may influence the effects: onsite workers; occasional (less than one day per week); light (one day per week); heavy (more than one day per week). The study examined a range of indicators that may be indicative of time pressure, but their survey did not include time use data. Golden and Veiga (2005) found that the relationship between working at home and job satisfaction was curvilinear; those with moderate levels of working at home reported the highest levels of satisfaction.

Other work characteristics

As noted above, evidence indicates that people who work at home work long hours. Felstead and Jewson (2000), for example, found that working at home was more prevalent among workers who worked long hours, since they tended to supplement their office hours. However, Kelley et al. (2008) found part-time workers rather than full-timers were more likely to work at home. This may partially explain gender differences in working at home, since women are more likely than men to work part-time. In their qualitative Swedish study, Michelson and Linden (1997) found that gender was less important for boundary management than hours of work (full-time/part-time) and length of time spent in the home. There are mixed findings in the limited research on the relationship between working at home and sector. While the public sector is often thought to promote flexible working arrangements to a greater extent than the private sector, Felstead et al. (2002) found that working at home was most prevalent among employees in the public sector and those in the unionized private sector.

Working at home is most common in managerial and professional occupations and in knowledge-intensive industries (Van den Broek and Keating, 2011), where there are high levels of autonomy about when and where to work (Ammons and Markham, 2004; Felstead et al., 2001; Nätti et al., 2011). Given that these occupations and industries are often male-dominated, this is also likely to impact on the gendered effects of working at home. Working at home is also prevalent among low skilled workers on low wages undertaking repetitive tasks (Felstead et al., 2001; Nätti et al., 2011). Not only does the ability to work at home apply to certain occupational groups, it also probably impacts on them differently. Callister and Dixon (2001) found that the homes of people in the higher skilled occupations are more suited to working at home, with more space and sometimes separate rooms for offices. Nevertheless, many studies of working at home have focused on specific sub-groups of occupations or industries and therefore fail to address whether the experiences they identify are typical of all people who work at home (e.g. Ammons and Markham, 2004; Berke, 2003; Halford, 2006; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003; Redman et al., 2009). Given that working at home is most prevalent among managers and professionals, it is not surprising that highly educated groups are more likely to work at home than less qualified groups (Callister and Dixon, 2001). Other research suggests that while overall prevalence may not be greater among more highly educated workers, they may have particular patterns of working at home, such that Peters and Van der Lippe (2007) found they were less likely than others to work at home regularly (less than one day per week on average). Evidence also suggests that high levels of education and professional occupations are positively associated with multi-tasking (Schieman and Young, 2015).

The aim of this research is to further the debate on working at home by using time use data to examine the relationship between working at home and time use patterns. Specifically it asks:

How does working at home relate to the quantity and quality of time spent on paid work (employment), unpaid work (domestic work and childcare) and (following Ransome, 2007) ‘recreational labour’ (sleep, personal care and leisure)?

Given the gendered nature of employment, unpaid work and leisure, it also asks: how does this differ by working at home arrangement and gender?

Note that this study focuses on the relationship between working at home and time and does not identify cause and effect.

Research method

Data are from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Time Use Survey, which contains a nationally representative sample of Australian households. All aged 15 years and over in sampled households were required to provide information. Respondents recorded their main (primary) activities, any simultaneous (secondary) activity, who they were with and where they were throughout the day, to a detail level of five-minute intervals over two days. The survey collected demographic information on respondents and their households and additional survey data, including the number of hours a week employees usually worked at home.

The sample was restricted to diaries of employees of working age (15–64 years) who recorded employment time on the diary day. The self-employed were excluded from the analysis since their employment patterns were expected to be substantively different to those of employees (Craig et al., 2012). Respondents with more than two hours of activity information missing from their time diaries were excluded. This yielded a sample of 2589 respondents who completed the time use diary on one or two days, resulting in a total 4143 completed diary days (a number of respondents recorded employment time on only one day). Analyses accounted for clustering of persons within households and diaries within persons. Analytic weights supplied with the data were also applied to ensure an equal distribution of days of the week. A full sample description is provided in the (online) technical appendix: Table A1.

The independent variable is working at home arrangement. This variable was derived by first establishing whether people worked at home on the diary day, using the physical location they reported in their diary; and second, examining responses to the survey question ‘How many hours per week [do you] usually work at home?’ These responses were categorized into four arrangements:

did not work at home on the diary day;

work at home rarely – worked at home on the diary day, but do not usually work at home;

work at home occasionally – worked at home on the diary day and usually work at home for less than 50 per cent of employment hours (WAH<50%);

work at home regularly – worked at home on the diary day and usually work at home for 50 per cent or more of employment hours (WAH=>50%).

The dependent variables examine both time quantity (amount) and quality (multi-tasking, time fragmentation and scheduling).

Amount of time spent in:

1a) employment, disaggregated into employment and employment-related travel;

1b) unpaid work, disaggregated into domestic work (includes housework, meal preparation, laundry, household management and maintenance) and childcare (includes talk-based care, physical care and supervision); and

1c) recreational labour, disaggregated into sleep, personal care (personal hygiene, health care, eating and drinking) and leisure (visiting entertainment and cultural venues, religious activities, sport, games, craft, reading, watching TV, listening to music). Each of these is measured as mean daily minutes spent in each activity per diary day.

Multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is defined as doing multiple tasks at the same time. It is identified in time diaries when two activities (main activity and secondary activity) are reported for the same time period. Multi-tasking in time use studies can be problematic since some respondents may only record their primary activity, even if they were doing another activity simultaneously. This is particularly thought to be the case in relation to multi-tasking employment and other activities (Sullivan and Gershuny, 2013). However, recording of secondary activities was relatively high in the sample: 91 per cent of diary days recorded some secondary activities (n=3759) and 61 per cent recorded a primary employment-related activity and a secondary activity (n=2511), with an average 116 minutes of secondary activity reported. This study focuses explicitly on time spent in employment-related activities while simultaneously recording childcare activity (n=138 diary days). Other multi-tasking with employment is excluded, as it mostly comprised multi-tasking with leisure activities, such as listening to the radio. Multi-tasking of employment and domestic work is also excluded as very little of this was undertaken (only 51 diaries reported it). Multi-tasking is reported in minutes per day.

Time fragmentation. Because multi-tasking data are limited and very few tasks can genuinely be carried out simultaneously, time fragmentation was also analysed, by counting respondents’ activity episodes. Each time a respondent started a new activity in their time diary this was classified as a new activity episode, enabling a count of total number of episodes during a day. This is important because employees may spend the same total amount of time in employment activities, but this can be experienced either as one continuous activity (i.e. a solid block of time) or as time interspersed, or interrupted, by other activities, which may speak to the quality of people’s time (Bittman and Wajcman, 2000; Mattingly and Bianchi, 2003) and the intensification of work (Callister and Singley, 2004).

Time scheduling. Tempograms show daily scheduling of employment activities to determine whether paid work is organized differently according to working at home arrangements. The mean number of minutes spent in employment at each hour of the day was calculated.

Analysis plan

Descriptive analyses are presented of the dependent variables by working at home arrangements and gender. Multivariate regression analyses are also presented on amount of time in the dependent variables, multi-tasking and fragmentation of time. Separate models are run by gender, because men and women experience time differently, particularly in terms of paid and unpaid work and also because the nature of working at home may be gendered, as discussed above. This is supported by the authors’ own preliminary analysis of the data, which directly tested gender differences (see online Table A3). The first models are OLS regressions on the amount of time spent in employment, domestic work, childcare, personal care, sleep and leisure, as well as multi-tasking. Poisson (count) models test whether working at home is associated with the number of episodes employees spent in paid work on the diary day. For ease of interpretation marginal effects in the Poisson models are presented rather than coefficients.

The independent variable of interest is working at home arrangement, as described above; no working at home on the diary day is omitted. The models control for other variables that may be independently associated with time use and working at home. These are: occupation (non-professional omitted/professional=1) and education (no degree omitted/tertiary degree=1), since both of these have been identified as contributing to job autonomy and capacity to work at home (e.g. Ammons and Markham, 2004; Felstead et al., 2001; Nätti et al., 2011), but also correlated with job demands such as long work hours; sector (private omitted/public=1), as evidence has shown differences in working at home arrangements by sector (e.g. Felstead et al., 2002); relationship status (has spouse [married or de facto] omitted/no spouse=1), as previous research indicates that although those who are married are more likely to work at home (Golden, 2008), it is only effective in enhancing work-life balance for singles (Ten Brummelhuis and Van der Lippe, 2010); whether respondent has children aged under 15 years (yes omitted/no=1), as the presence of children has been found to impact particularly on women’s decisions to work at home and also has a clear relationship with amount of time spent on childcare (e.g. Craig and Powell, 2011). Whether the diary day is a weekday (omitted) or weekend is also controlled for. The Poisson model examining employment episodes also controls for usual hours of work (part-time/full-time (omitted)/long hours (over 50 per week)), since the total hours spent in employment has a clear relationship with the number of episodes worked. Due to space constraint and because effects are in line with expectations, the control variables are not discussed; full models are detailed in the online technical appendix.

Results

The majority of the sample did no work at home on the diary day (72.8%); 12.2 per cent did work at home on the diary day, but reported that they did not usually work at home (WAH rarely); 11.8 per cent worked at home on the diary day but worked at home occasionally (for less than 50% of their total employment hours); and only 3.2 per cent worked at home on the diary day and reported working at home regularly (for 50% or more of their total employment hours). Men were more likely than women to do no work at home on the diary day (76.2% compared to 68.6%), while women were more likely to work at home rarely (14.5% compared to 10.3%) and to work at home regularly (5.1% compared 1.7%). For further information on how sample characteristics differed by working at home status see the online technical appendix (Table A2).

Amount of time

Table 1 panel A presents the mean number of minutes per day (mpd) men and women spent in major time activities by their working at home arrangement. On average men spent much longer than women on employment, regardless of working at home arrangement. For both men and women, employment time (excluding travel) was highest for those who did no work at home (men 481mpd; women 409mpd), followed by those who worked at home rarely (men 442mpd; women 345mpd), those who worked at home occasionally (men 411mpd; women 339mpd) and those who worked at home regularly (men 446mpd; women 238mpd). For women, amount of time in employment was substantially lower for those who worked at home regularly, while for men, the lowest work hours were among those who worked at home occasionally. The difference in time spent in employment across working arrangements was much more varied for women than for men. As would be expected, employment-related travel, or commuting, was highest among both men and women who did not work at home and lowest among those who worked at home regularly.

Table 1.

Descriptive analysis: amount of time in activities, multi-tasking and fragmentation by WAH arrangement and gender.

	Men				Women
	No WAH on diary day (dd)	WAH on dd but not usually (rarely)	WAH on dd usually <50% (occasionally)	WAH on dd usually =>50% (regularly)	No WAH on diary day (dd)	WAH on dd but not usually (rarely)	WAH on dd usually <50% (occasionally)	WAH on dd usually =>50% (regularly)
A. Amount of time in activities (minutes per day)
Employment
Employment excluding travel	481	442	411	446	409	345	339	238
Employment-related travel	57	48	37	13	49	34	34	11
Unpaid work
Domestic work	49	72	76	72	93	118	139	191
Childcare	21	25	41	34	30	30	45	120
Recreational labour
Personal care	116	107	120	110	132	130	127	123
Sleep	477	491	489	470	484	500	488	494
Leisure	204	216	217	236	187	212	201	194
B. Multi-tasking (minutes per day)
Employment (excluding travel) and simultaneous childcare	0.3	0.8	6.0	6.3	1.4	5.1	4.9	24.4
C. Fragmentation of time (mean count)
Episodes of employment (excluding travel)	2.7	3.5	4.2	5.4	2.7	3.4	4.0	3.8

Note: weighted data.

Women spent more time than men on domestic work and childcare overall and their time in these activities was more varied according to their working at home arrangements than for men. Women who worked at home regularly spent much longer on domestic work and childcare compared to other women, with time spent on these activities increasing with the regularity of working at home. Men who worked at home on the diary day did more domestic work than those who did not, with little variation by working at home status. However, men who worked at home occasionally had the highest childcare time.

For both men and women there was little variation in time spent on personal care, sleep or leisure time. Nevertheless, personal care time was highest among men who worked at home occasionally and lowest among men who worked at home rarely, whereas for women it was highest among those who did not work at home and lowest among those who worked at home regularly. For both men and women, sleep was highest among workers who worked at home rarely. However, sleep time was lowest among women who did no work at home and among men who worked at home regularly. Leisure time was lowest for both men and women who did no work at home on the diary day. For men, leisure time was highest among those who worked at home regularly, while for women it was highest if they worked at home rarely. The biggest difference between men and women’s leisure times (42mpd) was among those who worked at home regularly.

Table 2 summarizes the multivariate models (full models are available in the online technical appendix). Each row summarizes a different model and each column reports the main effects on the independent variable: working at home. Panel A presents the OLS analyses of the amount of time men and women spent in employment, unpaid work and recreational labour. Examining men, both those who worked at home rarely and occasionally (<50%) spent significantly less time in employment and employment-related travel and significantly more time on domestic labour and sleep than men who did no work at home on the diary day. Men who worked at home rarely spent significantly less time on personal care (which may indicate less time spent getting ready for work); while those who worked at home occasionally spent significantly longer on childcare. Most of these differences were substantively small, 10–20mpd, with the exceptions of employment, which were 30 minutes (WAH rarely) and 42 minutes (WAH<50%).

Table 2

Multivariate analysis summary: main effects of independent variables in each model by working at home arrangement and gender.

	Men				Women
	Constant: No WAH on diary day (dd)	WAH on dd but not usually (rarely)	WAH on dd usually <50% (occasionally)	WAH on dd usually =>50% (regularly)	Constant: No WAH on diary day (dd)	WAH on dd but not usually (rarely)	WAH on dd usually <50% (occasionally)	WAH on dd usually =>50% (regularly)
A. Amount of time in activities (minutes per day): OLS coefficients
Employment
Employment excluding travel	526.3***	−30.0**	−41.5***	−22.1	396.0***	−57.9***	−65.8***	−152.8***
Employment-related travel	59.2***	−8.3**	−20.9***	−48.1***	42.3***	−13.8***	−14.0***	−33.3***
Unpaid work
Domestic work	47.9***	20.9***	20.5***	18.6	129.0***	25.2***	42.3***	77.6***
Childcare	51.6***	4.5	11.4***	8.2	101.0***	4.6	11.8*	60.1***
Recreational labour
Personal care	108.0***	−10.5*	−0.5	−11.9	114.3***	−3.8	−9.4	−7.5
Sleep	469.4***	14.5*	13.9*	−2.2	471.7***	12.3*	10.0	17.2
Leisure	150.6***	5.9	5.7	35.3	138.4***	18.0*	8.5	18.6
B. Multi-tasking (minutes per day): OLS coefficients
Employment and childcare	1.8***	0.4	5.5***	6.2**	7.2***	3.6*	2.9	20.9***
C. Fragmentation of time (mean count): Poisson marginal effects
Episodes of employment	3.1***	1.0***	2.0***	3.2***	2.8***	0.8***	1.0***	1.8***

Note: each row represents a different model; each column represents the independent variables; weighted data; *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001; full models available in online technical appendix.

By contrast, women’s time spent on employment, employment-related travel and domestic labour differed significantly across all working at home categories. Differences in paid work and domestic work were substantial. Women who worked at home rarely or occasionally spent approximately one hour less on employment than women who did not work at home, while women who worked at home regularly spent 2.5 hours less on employment. Women’s time in domestic work also increased substantially with the regularity of time spent working at home. Compared to those who did no work at home, women who worked at home occasionally spent 12mpd longer doing childcare and women who worked at home regularly spent 78mpd longer doing childcare. Personal care, sleep and leisure showed fewer differences, with only sleep and leisure time being significantly longer among women who worked at home rarely compared to women who did not work at home.

Multi-tasking

Table 1, Panel B shows that across most working at home arrangements, women spent more time multi-tasking employment and childcare than men. The exception was that men averaged marginally higher multi-tasking than women among the occasional working at home group (6.0mpd, compared to 4.9mpd). For men and women, multi-tasking employment and childcare was highest when they worked at home regularly, albeit four times longer for women (24.4mpd) than men (6.3mpd).

Table 2, Panel B summarizes the OLS models of employment time (minutes per day) multi-tasked with childcare. It shows that on average multi-tasking was substantively low for both men and women. Working at home arrangements had different associations with multi-tasking for men and women, with women averaging higher levels of multi-tasking than men. For men, significantly more time was spent multi-tasking if they worked at home occasionally compared to those who did not work at home. Among women, compared to those who did not work at home, women who worked at home regularly averaged significantly more time multi-tasking (21mpd).

Time fragmentation

To indicate fragmented or interrupted time, the average daily number of employment episodes was examined (Table 1, Panel C). For men, employment episodes were fewest for those who did not work at home (2.7) and increased the more regularly they worked at home. In contrast, for women, while employment episodes were also fewest when they did no work at home (2.7), the episodes were highest when they worked at home occasionally (4.0). This suggests working at home was either scheduled flexibly around, or interrupted by, non-employment activities. Table 2, Panel C summarizes the Poisson model results. It confirms that employment was more fragmented when people worked at home and increased significantly with the regularity of working at home. Men’s time in employment appeared more fragmented than women’s if they worked at home occasionally or regularly, although this was not tested statistically.

Time scheduling

Figure 1 demonstrates how employees scheduled their employment according to their working at home arrangements. It illustrates earlier findings that men spend more time on employment activities than women, but that this was particularly the case among those employees who worked at home on the diary day. For both men and women who did not work at home, employment time was concentrated around traditional work hours (between 9am and 5pm). However, employees who worked at home spent less time working ‘traditional hours’ and more time working in the evening/night, although this difference was substantively small. This was particularly the case for men who worked at home regularly, who spent more time working between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. It was also slightly more evident among women who worked at home rarely, who spent more time working between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. and slightly more time between midnight and 7 a.m. This illustrates that employees who worked at home scheduled their paid work differently to those who did not.

Figure 1

Scheduling of employment (mean minutes per hour).

Discussion and conclusion

This article set out to identify what happens when employees work at home in terms of the amount of time they spend in paid and unpaid work and recreational labour, as well as the extent to which paid work is associated with flexibility and blurred boundaries, measured by examining multi-tasking, fragmentation and scheduling. Importantly, it examined each of these outcomes by gender and distinguished between employees who did not work at home on the diary day and those who worked at home on the diary day with different patterns of regularity.

Different working at home arrangements were associated with different patterns of time use in employment, domestic work and childcare (more so for women than for men), but had few associations with time spent on ‘recreational labour’ (sleep, personal care and leisure: Ransome, 2007) for either gender. More broadly, this shows that variation in time patterns by working at home arrangements was largely a result of shifting time between paid and unpaid work (domestic labour and childcare), not between paid work and recreational labour. Arguably this indicates that working at home does not enable workers to have better work-life balance, as it implies they are most likely to spend the time they gain on a different kind of work, rather than leisure pursuits or ‘life’ outside work.

The analyses indicated that the average employee, male or female, spent significantly less time on employment activities if they worked at home compared to if they did not. Also illustrated by the tempograms, this disputes existing research suggesting people who work at home work long hours (e.g. Ammons and Markham, 2004; Golden, 2008; Nätti et al., 2011). The tempograms do however illustrate that people who worked at home scheduled less employment in ‘traditional hours’ and more in the evening, which may make it more difficult for individuals to make an assessment of their total working time and compare themselves with their co-workers (Peters and Van der Lippe, 2007). For men, the reduced time in paid work was most notable if they worked at home rarely or occasionally. Only men who worked at home occasionally spent more time on childcare activities, challenging arguments that men will do more domestic work if they are at home more (Silver, 1993).

Men’s experiences also contrast with women’s experiences of working at home. There was more variation in women’s time in employment and unpaid labour by working at home arrangements compared with men. The differential impact by gender was particularly notable among those who worked at home regularly. While men’s time did not vary significantly between those who worked at home regularly and not at all, women’s time was significantly and substantively different. Women who worked at home regularly (compared to those who did not work at home) spent significantly less time on employment activities and significantly more time on domestic work and childcare. The finding that women, more than men, changed their time and routine is supported by other research and is consistent with norms that women, not men, shoulder the responsibility for managing family time (Craig and Powell, 2011; Pocock et al., 2012). Although the analysis is not causal, it suggests working at home regularly reinforces the domestic burden of women (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001) and therefore gender inequity around paid and unpaid work. It suggests women are more likely than men to work at home to accommodate work and family demands (Sullivan and Smithson, 2007) and that for women working at home may be an alternative to opting out of the workforce completely (Baruch, 2000). More broadly, it confirms that men’s paid work time is much less contingent on other factors than women’s (Craig and Powell, 2011; Mattingly and Sayer, 2006). This conclusion is underlined by the data on multi-tasking and scheduling of paid work.

Fragmented time and multi-tasking are largely viewed negatively in the literature. This is due to ‘difficulties’ maintaining boundaries and ‘avoiding interruptions’ (Ammons and Markham, 2004; Mann and Holdsworth, 2003) and since it signals time pressure as people squeeze more tasks into limited time (Offer and Schneider, 2010). However, the finding that women did more childcare and more multi-tasking if they worked at home regularly suggests these women have chosen to work at home precisely for this purpose. Sullivan and Lewis (2001) similarly found that some of the teleworkers they interviewed combined tasks as a deliberate strategy and this was viewed as an advantage of working at home; working at home reportedly helped with carrying out domestic work. Evidence also points to combining tasks being more common among women than men (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Halford (2006), on the other hand, suggests that researchers should give up yearning for boundaries, arguing that there is diminished need for them. Again this argument is supported by the tempograms, which show that scheduling of paid work was different for those who worked at home and those who did not. Nevertheless it can be argued that the ‘choice’ to combine tasks and minimize boundaries between work and family is one constrained by structural issues, that make it challenging for women with young children, especially, to work full-time and away from the home (for example, due to a lack of accessible and affordable childcare) (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001).

At the same time, the lack of association found between men’s working at home arrangements, their unpaid work time (domestic work and childcare) and their multi-tasking suggests there is a gendered element to this. First because men who work at home appear more able to maintain boundaries between employment and other activities than women (e.g. Ammons and Markham, 2004); and, second, men may work at home for different reasons than women do. For example, as Bailey and Kurland (2002) found in their study, men may do so to escape office distractions rather than to manage their employment and non-employment activities.

Overall, this study’s findings point to a clear and gendered association between working at home and amount of time (in relation to paid and unpaid work), multi-tasking and scheduling of paid work. The gendered impact of working at home was particularly strong among those who worked at home regularly, which itself is gendered (Felstead et al., 2001). For both men and women, working at home for any period did not enable them to gain better work-life balance in the sense of increasing the amount of time they were able to dedicate to recreational labour (Ransome, 2007). However, for women in particular, it is likely that working at home was used to support the juggling of work and family, given the evidence that employment time was exchanged for unpaid work time and vice versa. While at the micro level working at home may grant individual women some control over how they juggle paid and unpaid work, at a macro level working at home reinforces gendered divisions of labour inside and outside the home.

Footnotes

Funding

This research was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funding scheme (project DE130100028).

Abigail Powell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW Australia. She currently holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA). Her research interests are in gender, diversity, flexible working arrangements, work-life balance and social policy.

Lyn Craig is a Professor at the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Australia. She is an Australian Research Council QEII Fellow and her research interests include the time impacts of children, care and social reproduction; motherhood, fatherhood, and gender equity; the division of domestic labour, work-family balance and comparative family and social policy.

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