Seminar Series1: Gender, transport and information communication in the developed world.

Week 5: Gender, transport and information communication technology: the advent of the home office and teleworking.

This seminar will explore the impact of new information communication technologies on women�s employment opportunities and will consider the impact that such change can have on their transport needs and upon the transport system. The key readings are;

http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/summary/summary.php?id=317

http://www.ehomemakers.net/en/aboutus.php?id=13

http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/conf/BALTIMORE/authors/aitken/paper.html

The first reading provides an understanding of the development of telework and explores gender differences within telework. It reports:

The results of the survey produced an extremely complex picture. Perhaps precisely because of the diversity which it offers in the organisation of work in time and place, teleworking appears capable both of reinforcing traditional gender roles and of challenging them. The interviews revealed a wide range of types: the woman who is using teleworking as a short-term means of accommodating work, in a lifestyle primarily devoted to carrying out her traditional roles as a housewife and mother; the woman who is happy to work from home indefinitely as a primary breadwinner with a male �househusband�; the woman for whom teleworking provides some personal relief from her role as carer of a frail adult; the solitary man who is only working from home because he cannot find a job elsewhere; the �new man� fitting work in between his household chores while his wife goes out to work; the freedom-seeking individualist who sees teleworking as an escape from the shackles of the corporation. These cast doubt on crude models which assume that there are intrinsic differences between women�s labour market behaviour and that of men. The results of this survey suggest that the relationship between domestic and economic circumstances and behaviour is much more complex, and cannot be simply �read off� from a worker�s gender. Rather, it depends on an array of other factors.

Nevertheless, the survey results also suggest that, where all other things are equal, there is some convergence between male and female labour market behaviour and attitudes to work in the teleworking situation. This type of working arrangement appears to be conducive to a breakdown of traditional role separation. Men are taking on more domestic and community tasks. Women are not only taking on the role of breadwinner but also, to some extent, laying down structures to protect their working lives from invasion by family demands; they are claiming some private space, albeit often only during the hours when children are out of the home. While teleworking may be one precondition for this development, however, it is by no means a sufficient one, and there are clearly many situations where this does not take place.

When it does, a high price is paid for it. The men in our sample had, in effect, taken on many of the disadvantages usually suffered by women in the labour market � contingent status, insecurity, relatively low pay and lack of promotion prospects.

Despite this convergence, the data also give us clear evidence of the persistence of the traditional male breadwinner/female housewife model, and reveal that it is still women who are bearing the greatest portion of the responsibility for childcare. @ http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/summary/summary.php?id=317

The second reading reports on gender differences in teleworking in Malaysia:

�For instance, women tend to have more difficulty incorporating their home-environment with their work-environment.�

According to Chong the study also revealed that one of the key barriers teleworkers faced was the perception of their families and peers about home-based work itself.

�Home-based work is still generally not considered a real job, so family members would often disturb teleworkers, assuming that since they are at home, they are available for visits, to run errands or to do the household chores.

�Interestingly, the study also revealed that for male teleworkers, there was the added pressure of not appearing to be fulfilling the breadwinner role of the husband because they worked from home.� @http://www.ehomemakers.net/en/aboutus.php?id=13

The first and second reports on teleworking above both indicate that women are more likely to be disturbed in their tasks on account of other household business than are men.

The third reading confirms the understandings presented by the first two: it reports:

The experiences of telecommuters -- or more broadly, home-based workers -- are documented by several empirical studies. This research finds gender to be important in differentiating the motivations, experiences, and satisfactions of telecommuters. Men, unlike women, rarely choose telecommuting as a way to perform childcare responsibilities, but do so in order to increase productivity and escape the environment of the corporate workplace. Men see telecommuting as an opportunity to balance leisure with work, not childcare with work (Wajcman and Probert 1988, Lozano 1989, Olson 1989, Gurstein 1991, Holcomb 1991). Gurstein (1991) finds that these priorities are apparent in the resulting time/space patterns of women and men. Men spend more time than women on recreation, sleep, and work and less time on housework and childcare. The lack of temporal and spatial boundaries between home and work means that telecommuting often entails working long hours (Lozano 1989, Gurstein 1991). This is especially so for men, who are more likely to work in professions prone to "workaholism" (Wajcman and Probert 1988, Massey 1995). One of Penny Gurstein's respondents, concerned for his family, notes that his "goal is to cut back to six days a week" (1991, p. 173). @ http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/conf/BALTIMORE/authors/aitken/paper.html

Clearly, household responsibilities and adverse transport circumstances play their role in telecommuting for women. But what does telecommuting mean for the organisation of transport? Does telecommuting result in women making greater use of postal and delivery services in their interaction with the world of work from their home base? What does work from the place of residence do to the traffic and transport patterns of residential neighbourhoods: does it reduce passenger traffic and induce business traffic? These questions will have a growing importance if women trading in the world of e-bay is the face of the future.

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