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Husbands working at home are multiplying

In a major Mexican city, a woman is struggling to become a partner at the local office of a major law firm, while her husband, an executive at a technology company, works from home, more than 900 km away. In Mexico City, he writes code from their apartment, close to the campus where she is studying for her Masters in Law. In Aguascalientes, she is a pediatrician for children, while he works remotely for a cryptography company.

Increasingly, in large cities, we see this trend in a sector of the population with a good level of education: wives who leave in the morning for their offices, classrooms or hospitals, saying goodbye to their husbands, who stay at home to work from there.

This is not a return to the 1960s and 1970s, but with a gender swap. At that time, middle-class women tended to be housewives, while men went out to work. Today, men continue to work from home full-time, and in many cases, they also participate in household chores, such as cooking, cleaning and caring for children. The phenomenon of remote work is multiplying the “long-distance husband” modality.

Gender differences at work

Men and women still specialize in different types of work. Jobs in industries such as computing and engineering are disproportionately held by men, while teaching and nursing jobs are dominated by women. Professions such as law and medicine may still employ more men than women, but the balance is tipping: today, more women than men are enrolled in law and medical schools. Thus, among young couples, she is more likely to be a lawyer or doctor than he.

Remote work by profession

Different occupations have taken different approaches to remote work. A minority of medical professionals can work remotely, taking telehealth jobs, but the vast majority must see patients in person. Attorneys may be tied to a specific state or area because of their license and specialty.

On the other hand, the industries that report the highest level of flexibility for remote work are, firstly, technology industries, such as software development and programming. Next are design, advertising, architecture, engineering and commercial jobs. At least half of people working in the IT or math field work remotely full-time.

Gender differences in remote work

The result is that, on balance, men find it easier to work from wherever they want. A survey by consulting firm McKinsey found that 38% of working men have the option to work remotely full-time, compared with just 30% of women. By contrast, half of women say they cannot work remotely at all, compared with 39% of men.

It might seem like this is another way women have lost out, but that view is one-sided. Couples make all kinds of compromises to make their lives work together. If she is offered a big promotion, on the condition that she move to another city, she may have to turn it down if his job is tied to her current residence. Geographical release for one partner allows the other to climb the corporate ladder.

Remote work as an opportunity for women

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University scholar and Nobel laureate in 2023, has advanced our understanding of women’s outcomes in the labor market. She has written about how remote work can be a boon for women. Women’s participation in the professional field has increased when paid work from home has been possible. She has also found that gender pay gaps narrow in fields where flexible work is the norm.

Social changes challenge us to find new ways to build a society with similar opportunities for all, where we learn to combine economic development with quality of life and family.

If you want to delve deeper into this topic, I invite you to read my book Personal Reengineering.

Thank you for reading me.
Dr. Roch