Knowledge work and flexible working: Helping or hindering working women?

Citation

Eikhof DR (2016) Knowledge work and flexible working: Helping or hindering working women?. In: Connerley M & Wu J (eds.) Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 361-374. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-9897-6_21

Abstract
Women's workforce participation and advancement still lag behind those of men. This is true despite two recent trends that could have been expected to facilitate women's careers: the rise in knowledge work and the increase in flexible working. This chapter contrasts the potential of knowledge work and flexible working for facilitating gender equality at work with an analysis of their hidden and lesser discussed gendered implications. Certain characteristics of knowledge work pose challenges that women find disproportionately more difficult to deal with than men. Flexible working, especially when undertaken from home, often results in gendered practices and stigmatisation that hinder women's careers. The chapter brings together empirical evidence from a broad range of studies to discuss these hidden consequences of knowledge work and flexible working for women's workforce participation and advancement and to identify implications for research, practice and policy.

Keywords
Flexible working; Gender equality; Knowledge work; Tele-work; Women’s work; Work-life balance; Work-life boundary