Negotiating Indonesian Married Women’s Agency in a Career: Work From Home Arrangement as a Possible Solution

Abstract

Financial challenges have led to the emergence of dual-earner couples. Nonetheless, in male-dominated societies like Indonesia, women’s career involvement, although contributing to the household income, is not correlated with men’s contribution to the household task. A career is seen as a privilege for women because their primary value is conventionally anchored on marriage and family. International studies suggested that the Work From Home (WFH) arrangement is an effective solution to enable women to balance their work and family roles. While WFH was non-existent in Indonesia before the COVID-19 pandemic, the latter forced companies to adopt the former. This provided an opportunity to examine whether WFH can be a remedy for working Indonesian women to negotiate their work and family roles. Hence this study is aimed to look closely at the issue, comprising two general aims. First, it provides a general picture of current practices of division of gender in Indonesia using current literature. Second, using online survey data from 201 Indonesian workers, this report provides empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of WFH, particularly for married working women in Indonesia in negotiating their work and household roles. While describing current feminism issues in the non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies, the article also discusses the long-term practical strategy to empower Indonesian women in careers by emphasizing gender equality while acknowledging the men’s leadership role.