Connections Between Work Modality and Wellbeing Among Low-Income Working Mothers

• In Event: Employment Instability, Working-Time Employment Policies, and Economic, Health, and Work-Family Wellbeing

Abstract

The rapid expansion of remote and hybrid work during the COVID-19 pandemic reconfigured how many working parents balance reproductive and paid labor and continues to affect many families, even with return-to-office movement in the United States. Research reveals remote work exacerbating gendered inequities within many households. However, much of this literature is based on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic and in two-parent and dual-earning families. This study examines the role of work modality in the work-family experiences of relatively homogenous group of single-headed and low-income families after the official end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study draws on qualitative data from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 27 mothers of PK–12 children who attend school in Detroit. This analysis focuses on work modality, comparing the experiences of the six women working remotely with those working in person. Thematic coding, along with within- and cross-case analysis, was employed to examine variations in parents' experiences based on levels of care and labor involvement. 

We have two main findings. First, we find that many women found remote work to feel safer in the sense that they had a protective buffer between them and their clients/customers and supervisors. Second, we find significant differences by workplace relationships. Whereas in-person relationships/sense of emotional safety at work were more mixed, in-person workers were more likely to say they had relationships with material benefits for them and their children (e.g., ability to get letters of recommendation, meet someone who would do their child’s hair at a discount, etc.). In contrast, mothers who worked remote had no such relationships with people at work. Overall we found that, remote workers saw the modality as positive for their families, particularly around being able to supervise children while working, and downplayed challenges related to lack of compartmentalization available for in-person workers whose work modality helped maintain firm work-home boundaries.  

The literature on the benefits of remote work are mixed, and, in particular both in-person and work-from-home models have risks for women’s wellbeing due to the gendered nature of the labor sector and family obligations in the U.S. Specifically, women who work in person are much more likely to be in jobs with occupational health risks (e.g., harassment, physical injury) and, for women who are Black or low-income like those in this study, frequently face work-based discrimination. Women working in either modality face increased expectations to provide reproductive labor than men. Thus, these findings indicate the continued need for structural solutions for fundamental challenges working women face, in particular the need for accessible, affordable, high quality childcare and occupational health initiatives that optimize workplace safety, and, finally, efforts to reduce overall social isolation so that regardless of workplace relationship magnitude or quality, people can be in fulfilling relationships essential to wellbeing.

Author

• Kess Ballentine, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author