Women want to work from home post-pandemic despite housework burden: Study

ISTANBUL

Women are expected to prefer working from home post-pandemic despite the heavy burden of housework, a study carried out by Turkish academics with the support of the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) has revealed.

Mahmut Bayazıt of Sabancı University and İlknur Özalp Türetgen from Istanbul University conducted a research to reveal how white-collar workers who lived with their families and partially worked from home during the pandemic were affected by the outbreak and how they coped with the new order.

An eight-week longitudinal study examined how the work-family balance of individuals who had to work remotely at home, where they lived with others due to the pandemic, was affected within the scope of the study.

The research, which brings together data on subjects such as the time individuals allocate to home, work and themselves, reveals that the experience of working from home shows significant differences according to seniority, gender, married and having children.

The research shows that the pandemic strains women more than men.

As millions work from home, it has been observed that women experience conflicts based on their job-related roles preventing their family responsibilities and family roles from their job-related responsibilities.

Women take on housework more than their spouses, even if they are more established in their careers than their husband.

Physical stress symptoms such as body pain, fatigue, and psychological stress symptoms such as helplessness and anger are also more common in women.

Women with children under six years of age constitute the group with the highest rates of both work-family and family-work conflict.

Despite all these results, women said they will prefer to work from home as often as possible after the pandemic, more than men.

When stay-at-home orders and weekend lockdowns ended on June 1, the research found that the time allocated to work and home increased rapidly, while time individuals spend on themselves decreased.

It is among the findings that those who believe that they receive high levels of social support from their managers and family have lower physical and psychological difficulties and higher levels of satisfaction.