Who gets to choose: a global perspective on gender, work and choice in the post-pandemic workplace

• Date: 11 September 2023
• Pages: 870-886
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-06-2022-0159
• Published date: 11 September 2023
• Author: Cristen Dalessandro,Daniel Patterson,Alexander Lovell

Who gets to choose:

a global perspective on gender,

work and choice in the

post-pandemic workplace

Cristen Dalessandro, Daniel Patterson and Alexander Lovell

OC Tanner Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Abstract

Purpose –Compared to the years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more workers today seemingly have

choice over where, when a nd how they do their work. However, gender ineq ualities at work and at home

persist, which may impa ct perceptions of choice. Thus , researchers must investigat e the potential impact of

gender and domestic res ponsibilities on per ceptions of work-relat ed options, including p erceptions of

workspace choice.

Design/methodology/approach –Using an original dataset with workers in North America, South

America, Europe and Asia (N 53,147), the authors conducted logistic regression analyses to explore whether

workersfelt they had a choice in where they do their work (workspace choice). In addition to gender, the authors

considered the effect of domestic responsibilities (childcare and housework) on worker perceptions of

workspace choice.

Findings –In the paper’s initial regression, the authors found that men (OR: 1.24; 95%CI 1.04–1.48) as well as

workers reporting that a partner was responsible for all or most of the housework (OR: 1.80; 95%CI 1.34–2.40)

and childcare (OR 1.51; 95%CI 1.09–2.09) reported feeling a greater sense of workspace choice. Simultaneously,

follow-up regression analyses found that women and men whose partners had a greater share of domestic

responsibility had amplified perceptions of choice. However, surprisingly, men who claimed primary

responsibility for domestic work also reported more choice over workspace.

Originality/value –Using an international sample, the authors explore gender inequities in worker

perceptions of workspace choice. The authors’findings suggest that domestic responsibilities interact with

gender in interesting ways, leading to differences in perceptions of choice in the post-pandemic workplace.

Keywords Gender, Work, Working parents, Gender inequality, Workspace, Choice

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Since the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic, workplace changes (including the rise

of remote work) and a record employee shortage have given individuals more power and

choice over where, when and how they do their work (Tessema et al., 2022). However, this

EDI

43,5

870

© Cristen Dalessandro, Daniel Patterson and Alexander Lovell. Published by Emerald Publishing

Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone

may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and

non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full

terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

The authors would like to thank the editors as well as the anonymous reviewers for their feedback on

drafts of this paper. Their insights helped make the paper stronger. In addition, an earlier version of this

paper was presented at the 2022 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals “Why It Matters”

Conference (Orem, Utah, USA) and included in the conference program and proceedings.

Conflict of interest statement: This research was sponsored by the O.C. Tanner Company (Salt Lake

City, UT, USA), which is where the manuscript authors are employed. Publication may lead to the

development of products licensed to O.C. Tanner, in which the authors—as employees of the O.C.

Tanner Company—may have a business and/or financial interest.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 21 June 2022

Revised 16 November 2022

24 April 2023

14 June 2023

Accepted 21 July 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 5, 2024

pp. 870-886

Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-06-2022-0159

increase in power is not distributed equally among all workers. For instance, research has

found that gender inequalities at work have worsened since 2020, and issues such as

childcare shortages and school closures have disproportionately impacted working mothers

(Collins et al., 2021;Dunatchik et al., 2021;Mooi-Reci and Risman, 2021;Russell and

Frachtenberg, 2021). For gender scholars, these findings are not necessarily surprising, as

global feminist research has long documented gender inequalities both at work and

regarding the “second shift”of housework and childcare that takes place outside of paid work

(Baxter and Wright, 2000;Bobbitt-Zeher, 2011;Hays, 1996;Hochschild, 2003;Misra et al.,

2021). Across the world, gender norms and expectations have consistently impacted women’s

career choices and trajectories to the extent that some scholars have pondered whether

women even have career “choices”to the same degree as men (Blair-Loy, 2005;Glass, 1988;

Kan et al., 2022;Massey et al., 1995). In the post-pandemic economy, do women perceive that

they have choice regarding work to the same extent as men? Do domestic responsibilities

matter when it comes to perceptions of choice? Lastly, how do gender and domestic

responsibilities interact to influence workers’perceptions of choice?

To investigate these questions, we use data from an original survey with workers

worldwide (N 53,147) and a feminist theoretical approach to the concept of “choice”to

explore gender differences in one aspect of choice: worker perceptions of choice in where

they do their work (or, their workspace) in the post-pandemic economy. We also consider

how workers’current domestic (childcare and housework) responsibilities might matter

for perceptions of choice. Exploring this issue on a global scale and using logistic

regression analyses, we find that gender as well as domestic responsibilities matter

(sometimes, in surprising ways) when it comes to workers’perceptions of workspace

choice.

Background

Women’s experiences negotiating paid and “second shift”work pre- and post-pandemic

Both pre- and post-pandemic, scholars have documented gender inequalities in the realm of

work on a rolling basis. For example, a predominant issue among heterosexual couples has

been working women’s disproportionate responsibility for housework and caregiving—the

“second shift”—in addition to paid work (Croft et al., 2014;Hays, 1996;Hochschild, 2003). At

the same time, independent of the issue of balancing paid and unpaid work, women have

faced significant challenges within the workplace related to gender norms and expectations

(Gorman, 2005;Meitzen, 1986;Olson and Becker, 1983). Yet despite the increased attention

paid by scholars and practitioners over the past 3 decades to this issue, gender inequality at

workcontinuestobeaproblem(Friedmann and Efrat-Treister, 2023;Rao, 2021;

Stojmenovska, 2023).

One body of literature argues that ongoing issues are due, in large part, to the persistence

of gender essentialist ideas that construct men and women as fundamentally different kinds

of people with different capabilities (Levanon and Grusky, 2016;Ridgeway, 2011;Ronen,

2018). For instance, women in the labor force are sometimes treated differently due to the

perception that they may be less committed to their careers and more committed to the

domestic sphere when compared to men (Benard and Correll, 2010;Misra et al., 2007). This

reasoning relates to the idea that women’s careers in the paid labor market are often

secondary to both caregiving duties and men’s careers (Blair-Loy, 2005;Rao, 2020). Even

institutional features that outwardly appear to promote or even advocate for women

workers—such as policies that exclusively support maternity or caregiver leave for women

but not men—can ultimately support hierarchical orders of status inequality (Ridgeway and

Correll, 2004). The unintended consequence of these policies can reinforce the idea that

women are family caregivers first and workers second (Bobbitt-Zeher, 2011).

Choice in the

post-pandemic

workplace

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