By Erica and Karen

We were chatting with a titan of the corporate world recently, and he was touting his company’s policy of flexible work arrangements, indicating that they are particularly appealing to employees who are mothers of young children. We told him that’s not good for women. He was taken aback. So we explained.

Remote work as a concept did not start with COVID. For those occupations that can accommodate remote work, it has been available for some time. Over that time, men and women have taken advantage of remote work possibilities. But for women, it has been more difficult to get, and more damaging to their careers—mostly, we posit, because women usually ask for remote work or other flexible arrangements so that they can attend to child or elder care obligations. Their employers view that as a lack of commitment, or a lack of ambition.

In 2017, an article in the Harvard Business Review discussed an authoritative study of flex-time outcomes. The post noted that men do better than women even when asking for scheduling changes.

Munsch found that when male employees requested flexible schedules to accommodate child care requests, almost 70% of participants were either likely or very likely to grant the request. When female employees made the same request, that number dropped to around 57%. In addition, participants were much more likely to evaluate the men as likable and committed than the women.

Another study found that while people working remotely put in more overtime than people in the office, men ended up earning more than women did.

One possible explanation is that men are more likely to gain schedule control as a result of increased productivity or a promotion and to use that control to set an even more productive schedule, while women are more likely to use their control to better accommodate their family schedule. An equally likely explanation might be that women are perceived as using flexible scheduling to accommodate family demands. Thus, even if women are using flexible schedules to be more productive, the impression of their peers might be the opposite.

Men and women also use flex time differently, as a Forbes article noted in 2013.

According to a recent survey by Catalyst, men and women use flex options equally but women are much more likely than their male counterparts to work remotely if given the opportunity. This results in less face time in the workplace which has a negative effect on their careers.

Because men use flexible arrival and departure time instead of telecommuting, they have more face time and are, therefore, more likely to be viewed favorably for promotions and high profile assignments.

Of course we now know that working remotely does not necessarily reduce productivity. Indeed, productivity may increase with reduced time spent commuting, and chatting by the coffee machine, and going out to lunch. That benefits employers, for sure. But does that benefit women? And is any employee benefitted by the blurring of lines between work and non-work? We think work is part of life, but to be constantly on call for both your employer and your family is not tenable.

We understand that the introduction of Zoom has made remote communication more effective. But does that benefit women? Fast Company says yes—because men don’t talk over women as much, and the relative heights of women and men cannot be perceived. But in fact some data suggest women feel pressure as a consequence of always being on screen, and our own experience would not confirm any reduction in the talking-over tendency.

So why do women want to work remotely? For those with children, the answer is obvious. They can spend more time with children, and will be there when children are sick, or when school is canceled, or whatever. That saves them from the stress society places on women who want to work and as a consequence cannot constantly be with their children. (Though it does not relieve them of the stress of feeling they are not fully present when working.) But does that mean working remotely is good for women? No. It means policies supporting remote work for women continue to support the absence of policies providing for child care in this country. That’s bad for women. But its also bad for the economy. A Bloomberg article reports:

According to a report from S&P Global Inc., the U.S. could add $1.6 trillion to GDP if women entered and stayed in the workforce at a rate similar to Norway’s, which has government-subsidized day care.

Are we arguing that all women should work through their child rearing and eldercare years? No. Are we saying that employers should not permit people to avoid rush hour on occasion, or allow them to stay home now and again when something special is happening—or just because? No. We are arguing that women should have the same opportunity to work as men do. Right now, lack of investment in child care creates major barriers.

Using remote work to allow women to perform child care obligations will likely mean it will take much longer for women to achieve equality in the workforce. There is an alternative. That alternative is a national investment in childcare—an investment that will reap huge rewards—for women and everyone else. By itself, offering remote work to mothers will not. Meanwhile, our business titan should continue to offer remote options. But it will not benefit women in the workplace in the absence of real investment in child care.