Hybrideseminar: How Has the Increase in Work from Home Impacted the Parental Division of Labor?

We analyze how parents’ flexibility gains through increases in remote work impact their division of non-market and market work. We do so using representative panel survey data and population-wide administrative data from the Netherlands spanning the years 2012– 2021. We argue that we are able to isolate the effect of working from home since (1) the remote work potential was realized to a large extent only during the Covid-19 pandemic, (2) schools and daycare were available in the Netherlands throughout the pandemic, with a brief exception in spring 2020, and (3) generous support schemes kept working hours, unemployment and earnings at a similar level as before the pandemic. As a result of the fact that fathers gained more flexibility than mothers, parents divide childcare duties more equally and mothers increase their working hours. These findings suggest that wider acceptance of remote work by employers could lead to greater gender equality in the intra-household division of labor.