Remote Work Opportunity and Its Impact on Women's Employment and Empowerment

This study seeks to understand how access to remote work opportunities will influence women's jobs and empowerment as we move into a post-COVID, digitally transforming world. With the increasing trend of telecommuting and flexible work, especially during the pandemic, women now have more opportunities to work from home and achieve a better work-life balance, financial freedom, and independence in making choices. Utilizing convenience sampling of 106 respondents across various demographic categories, the present study analyses family conflict, the remote work environment, work independence, self-leadership, women's work, and empowerment using a quantitative method. These results demonstrate a highly positive relationship between control over independent tasks and female empowerment, indicating that self-leadership is a vital aspect of career advancement and personal freedom. Yet, the research also identifies key obstacles, such as family friction and socio-cultural barriers, that continue to hinder the full realization of the potential of remote work for women. Remote work benefits women's economic status and social status, but in different ways across various demographics. Those with higher educational attainment tend to benefit more than others. They conclude by highlighting the potential of remote work in promoting gender equality and empowering women in the workplace and call for a series of policies aimed at (i) addressing the digital divide, (ii) strengthening the support of the organizations (as family-friendly organizations), and (iii) reducing the family-related obstacles. It is suggested that future research examine the long-term impact of remote work on women's career paths, with a focus on cross-national studies to elucidate the role of cultural and institutional contexts in women's remote work experiences.

Remote work, women empowerment, work environment, and work Independence

1. Allen, T. D., Golden, T. D., & Shockley, K. M. (2015). How effective is telecommuting? Assessing the status of our scientific findings. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(2), 40–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100615593273 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Gajendran, R. S., & Harrison, D. A. (2007). The good, the bad, and the Unknown about telecommuting: Meta-analysis of Psychological Mediators and Individual consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(6), 1524–1541. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.6.1524 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Galanti, T., Guidetti, G., Mazzei, E., Zappalà, S., & Toscano, F. (2021). Work from Home during the COVID-19 Outbreak. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 63(7), 426–432. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000002236 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Gupta, S., Wei, M., Nektarios Tzempelikos, & Matthew Minsuk Shin. (2024). Women's empowerment: challenges and opportunities for sustainable development goals. Qualitative Market Research an International Journal, 27(4), 608–630. https://doi.org/10.1108/qmr-11-2023-0160 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Islam, M. K., & Slack, F. (2016). Women in Rural Bangladesh. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance - ICEGOV ’15-16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2910019.2910074 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Kooli, C. (2022). Challenges of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic for women in the UAE. Journal of Public Affairs, 23(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2829 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Mhlanga, D. (2024). Empowering African Women through Industry 4.0 in the 21st Century. Ssrn.com. https://ssrn.com/abstract=4680781 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Netemeyer, R. G., Boles, J. S., & McMurrian, R. (1996). Development and validation of work-family conflict and family-work conflict scales. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(4), 400–410. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.4.400 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Yarberry, S., & Sims, C. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19-Prompted Virtual/Remote Work Environments on Employees’ Career Development: Social Learning Theory, Belongingness, and Self-Empowerment. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 23(3), 152342232110178. https://doi.org/10.1177/15234223211017850 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]