Can Work from Home Help Balance the Parental Division of Labor?

Hans-Martin von Gaudecker (), Radost Holler, Lenard Holler and Christian Pugnaghi-Zimpelmann ()

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: Remote work expanded persistently after the Covid-19 pandemic. We study whether this increased job flexibility reduced within-household specialization in the Netherlands, where the pandemic’s childcare demand spike was transitory, isolating remote work’s effect. Using time-use and administrative data from 2016–2023 and a difference-in-differences design exploiting pre-pandemic remote work potential, we find each additional hour of potential raised parental childcare by about 10 minutes. As fathers have higher potential, the childcare gender gap narrowed by one-third. Mothers also increased market work when fathers could work from home. Thus, remote work can promote more equitable household labor division.

Keywords: job flexibility; remote work; childcare; division of labor; time-use data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2025-03, Revised 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
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