The Quality of Work, Family and Personal Life During Remote Work: Opinions of Russian Women
Research Article
Acknowledgments
The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research within the framework of the scientific project No. 22-18-00614
How to Cite
Tonkikh N.V., Chernykh E.A. The Quality of Work, Family and Personal Life During Remote Work: Opinions of Russian Women. Living Standards of the Population in the Regions of Russia. 2022. Vol. 18. No. 4. P. 477-490. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19181/lsprr.2022.18.4.5 (in Russ.).
Abstract
The object of the study, the results of which are presented in this article, is the quality of working, family and personal life. The subject of the study is the features of the quality of work, family and personal life of remote female workers who started working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. For women, most of whom have “dual employment” at work and at home, the relevance of assessing the quality of their work, family and personal life while working remotely is growing. The article analyzes the results of the author's survey of women who received their first experience of remote work during the pandemic. The authors come to the conclusion that the transition to a remote format basically did not affect the labor productivity and the level of remuneration of the women surveyed. Significant positive factors include: saving time for transport; the ability to combine work and household chores; the ability to independently plan work time, free schedule; the ability not to adapt to the dress code and corporate rules. Significant negative changes include changes that reduce the quality of working life: the boundaries between work and home are violated, overtime, there is no full disconnection and rest from work; lack of communication with colleagues; interfere, distract children, husband, other relatives; it is difficult to organize a workplace at home and it is difficult to motivate yourself to start working, it is difficult to concentrate. The highest differentiation in the frequency of choosing one answer or another is observed among respondents on the basis of “having children”. In general, such women find significantly fewer disadvantages than women who do not have children, or women whose age of all children is over 14 years old. The remote employment format for women raising young children is more likely to improve the quality of their work, personal and family life than vice versa. The hypothesis that dissatisfaction with remote work would be more common in the older age group was not confirmed.
Keywords:
remote employment, distant employment, women's employment, quality of working life, quality of family life, gender equality, pandemic, domestic duties, unpaid domestic work
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3. Gender equality in the G20 – Additional analysis from the time dimension ILO WORKQUALITY Department and DDG/P Office; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2019. URL: https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/how-the-iloworks/multilateral-system/g20/reports/WCMS_713376/lang--en/index.htm (accessed: 09/08/2022).
4. The Unpaid Care Work and the Labor Market. An analysis of time use data based on the latest World Compilation of Time-use Surveys. Jacques Charmes; International Labor Office - Geneva: ILO, 2019. ISBN: 978-92-2-133516-0. URL: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents /publication/wcms_732791.pdf (accessed: 09/08/2022).
5. Women at Work in G20 countries: policy action since 2020. ILO and OECD, 2021. URL: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/--dgreports/---cabinet/documents/publication /wcms_814421.pdf (accessed: 09/08/2022).
6. Isupova O.G. Who needs my child. Rec. on the book: Shadrina A. Dear children. Reducing the birth rate and the growth of the “price” of motherhood in the XXI century. M.: New Literary Review, 2017. Monitoring obshchestvennogo mneniya: Ekonomicheskiye i sotsial’nyye peremeny=Monitoring of public opinion: Economic and social changes. 2019;(6):467-472. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2019.6.23 (In Russ.).
7. Smith S., Converse D. Double Day Work: How Women Cope With Time Demands. 2009. URL: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.574.9070&rep=rep1&type=pdf (accessed 09/08/2022).
8. Loktyukhina N.V., Chernykh E.A. Quality of Working Life of Remote Employees: Methodological Approaches and First Assessments for the EU and Russia. Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii =Living Standards of the Population in the Regions of Russia. 2021;17(1):4256. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19181/lsprr.2021.17.1.4 (In Russ.).
9. Tonkikh N.V. Remote employment and parenthood: women’s opinions. Narodonaseleniye= Population. 2021;24(3):92-104. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19181/population.2021.24.3.8 (In Russ.).
10. Arkhangelsky V.N., Zinkina Yu.V., Shul’gin S.G. Fertility among women with different levels of education: current state and forecast scenarios. Narodonaseleniye= Population. 2019.;22(1):21-39. DOI: 10.24411/1561-7785-2019-00002 (In Russ.).
11. Pishnyak A.I., Nadezhdina E.V. Employment of Russian women after the birth of children: incentives and barriers. Zhurnal issledovaniy sotsial’noy politiki=Journal of Social Policy Research. 2020;18(2):221-238. DOI: 10.17323/727-0634-2020-18-2-221-238 (In Russ.).
12. Chernykh E.A., Loktyukhina N.V. The quality of remote female employment. Incomes, expenses and savings of the Russian population: trends and prospects. Materials of the VII International Scientific and Practical Conference. Rep. editor A.V. Yarasheva. Moscow, 2022:114-117 (In Russ.).
13. Korolenko A.V., Kalachikova O.N. Time for children: resource opportunities of modern parents. Sotsial’noye prostranstvo= Social space. 2019;5(22):1. DOI: 10.15838/sa.2019.5.22.1 EDN: MUHCWP
14. Kamneva E.V. Advantages and disadvantages of remote work during a pandemic. Samoupravleniye=Self-management. 2021;1(123):253256. EDN BBNWWI. (In Russ.).
15. Rudnicka A. et al. Eworklife: developing effective strategies for remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020. URL: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2020/07/NFW-Rudnicka-et-al.pdf (accessed 12/25/2020).
16. Lord F. The social perils and promise of remote work. Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy. 2020;(4):63-67.
17. Cook D. The freedom trap: digital nomads and the use of disciplining practices to manage work/leisure boundaries. Inf Technol Tourism 2022:355–390 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-020-00172-4
Article
Received: 19.10.2022
Accepted: 23.12.2022
Citation Formats
Other cite formats:
APA
Tonkikh, N. V., & Chernykh, E. A. (2022). The Quality of Work, Family and Personal Life During Remote Work: Opinions of Russian Women. Living Standards of the Population in the Regions of Russia, 18(4), 477-490. https://doi.org/10.19181/lsprr.2022.18.4.5
Section
ECONOMIC RESEARCH
