While
mothers with young children are adopting home-based teleworking, fathers are
shunning it, according to the Institute for Employment Studies (IES).
The
IES analysed the Government’s latest Labour Force Survey results and found that
while women use teleworking to work from home (they make up 53 per cent of all
telehomeworkers), men are much more likely to use the new information
technologies to support a roving workstyle (men make up 79 per cent of all
mobile teleworkers).
Telehomeworkers
are also much more likely to be part-time (at 44 per cent) compared with mobile
teleworkers, of whom only 16 per cent work part-time.
The
report’s authors said this seems to be associated with traditional patterns,
with women taking primary responsibility for childcare.
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Peter
Bates, IES research fellow, said: "While 12 per cent of all women in
employment have children under five, this rises to 23 per cent among women who
are telehomeworkers. But surely, telehomeworking also opens up the opportunity
for men to become househusbands and share in the childcare?"
