The Convergence of Work and Family: The Relationship between Working at Home, Children, and Gender.

Hilary Barker , Brown University

In recent decades in the United States, work-from-home arrangements have become increasingly common. If more workers are removing the physical boundary between work life and home life, what are the implications of this convergence on families and women’s social and economic position? In this paper, I apply event history analysis with data from recent waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how the location of work predicts couples' fertility decisions. Additionally, I examine whether couples' childbearing decisions depend on the gender of the partner working from home. This work contributes to the study of gender, work, and family by focusing on the understudied issue of the location of work. As workers gain flexibility and control over where they can work, it becomes increasingly important to understand the implications of home-based work on gender inequality and the family.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session P1. Poster Session Fertility, Family and the Life Course