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Working women are more likely to be in full-time employment in industries where hybrid and remote working have become standard practice since the pandemic began, according to research from official UK figures.
Analysis of Office for National Statistics microdata released on Thursday by consultancy Public First provides some of the strongest evidence yet of the benefits of home working for individuals and the wider economy.
The proportion of women working full-time in the UK increased from 56.5% in 2019 to 58.7% this year. But Public First found that the increase was much larger in industries where many companies have adopted hybrid work policies.
In finance and insurance, the proportion of women working full-time rose from 75% to 83%. In information and communications, this share rose from 79% to 83%, and in other professional services, from 68% to 71%.
The change is even more pronounced for mothers, with the proportion working full-time in finance and IT increasing by more than 10 percentage points.
Rachel Wolf, a founding partner at Public First, said the findings “convincingly demonstrate that the outcomes of the COVID-19 acceleration are indeed beneficial to large segments of the workforce because of their large amounts of human capital and the hours they work It’s not as long as people think”. man”.
While other reasons could explain why mothers work longer hours — including cost-of-living pressures or fathers taking on more childcare responsibilities — research shows a gap between industries where working from home is easier and those where workers still need to work primarily on-site. Obvious contrast.
There has also been a significant increase in the share of women working full-time in lower-paying fields, such as administration and support services, where remote work is common. In contrast, the hospitality industry has seen a steep decline, with labor shortages forcing many employers to offer more family-friendly shifts.
Increasing the number of hours women work is particularly important given the extent to which the UK workforce as a whole has shrunk since the pandemic.
Figures released this week by the Office for National Statistics showed that the proportion of working-age adults who were neither in work nor looking for work rose to 21.1% in the last three months, with a record 2.6 million people reporting poor health as a result. They cannot work.
However, as the labor market softens and workers’ ability to demand flexibility diminishes, growth in female employment may be at risk if employers try to roll back hybrid work policies.
A wider report was released on Thursday by the Hybrid Work Commission, the body tasked with advising ministers on how to maximize the benefits of post-pandemic working practices.
The commission found that three-quarters of hybrid employees felt it improved their work-life balance, and 70% of employees with children under 18 said it made it easier to juggle their responsibilities.
However, most employers who implement hybrid work arrangements are not convinced that hybrid work arrangements improve productivity.
The committee said this “perception gap may be sufficient to hinder the ability of UK businesses to maximize the benefits of hybrid and remote working”.
Ministers have given mixed messages on home working, sometimes urging staff to return to the office in the interest of younger colleagues and the city center economy, while more recently citing the availability of remote working as a reason to cut sickness benefit eligibility.
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