Mothers who choose to work from home regularly earn around 10% more than those who do not, but fathers get no significant benefit, a major new study says.
The study of 8,869 UK employees found that mothers on average earned more each year if they started to work from home because it allowed them to balance work and family demands better.
Johanna Pauliks, of the University of Wuppertal, Germany, carried out the first ever UK longitudinal research to examine the relationship between working from home and wages.
She adjusted survey data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study to rule out the influence of age, education and other factors in order to study the effect of working from home in isolation.
She found that women earned between 9% and 12% more than women who did not work from home, depending on the research model she chose.
In an article in the journal Work, Employment and Society, published by the British Sociological Association, she writes that: “Mothers are the ones who benefit the most from working from home in terms of their earnings, which points to the idea that mothers have the most to gain in terms of work-life reconciliation and therefore that the productivity advantages might be beneficial for them.
“Mothers are expected to prioritise family over work. Therefore, mothers stand to benefit more from the productivity advantages of working from home.
“Working from home allows individuals to coordinate work and other life obligations more sustainably, enabling them to work more productively, which can then shape career and job opportunities, and could therefore be positively associated with earnings.”
Her findings showed that for mothers, the common idea that “workers who utilise flexible working arrangements may experience discrimination from managers and co-workers because they are seen as less productive or committed to their work” was not correct.
She found no significant evidence that women overall earned more if they switched to working from home, and none that fathers, or men overall, benefited. “The article’s unique methodological approach reveals that the earning benefits of working from home are specific to mothers.”
- For her study, Johanna Pauliks compared employees who began working from home regularly between 2010 and 2019 with those who did not. The study is entitled ‘Is workplace flexibility penalised? The gendered consequences of working from home for the wages of parents and childless employees in the UK’.
For more information, please contact:
Tony Trueman
British Sociological Association
Tel: 0044 (0)7964 023392
tony.trueman@britsoc.org.uk
Notes:
Work, Employment and Society is published by the British Sociological Association and Sage. The BSA’s charitable aim is to promote sociology. It is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 3890729. Registered Charity Number 1080235 www.britsoc.co.uk