Household Labour During the Workday in Remote Work Contexts. Who Integrates It, and Why?

Abstract

Remote work is often presented as a means to balance out work and family domains, by giving the ability to integrate the two domains. Using border theory and social role theory as a framework, the present study aims to uncover the relationships of autonomy, job demands, work engagement, and the involvement with domestic tasks, with doing household labour during the workday (HLW), and how these relationships may differ depending on gender. The study was conducted among a sample of 1309 workers (65.77% women), who worked remotely at least once a week. Hypotheses were tested with a logistic regression and fractional polynomials. Results were in contradiction with the hypothesized relationships. Job demands and work engagement increased the probability of doing HLW. Autonomy decreased the probability of doing HLW. Involvement in domestic tasks was non-linearly associated with HLW. Specifically, workers who had to deal with domestic tasks mostly by themselves were more likely to resort to HLW, whereas others were less likely to do so. The relationships of autonomy, job demands, work engagement and IDT with HLW did not differ depending on gender.