WFH: The myth of women's empowerment

Context:  2020 is the year that decided decisively on the debate over work from home (WFH) as a policy.

WFH as a boon for educated women:

• Enables them to do multi-tasking: since they bear the burden of child and parental care and general housework.
• Eliminates the innate prejudices: that organisations have against hiring women.
• Fosters gender equality in the workplace: Now women can attend meetings through web conferencing at any time while earlier they were excluded from some meetings held at night.
  • May raise the proportion of women working in corporations while reducing the opportunities for men to bypass women within the organisational

Limitations of WFH in altering gender dynamics in the workplace:

• May fail to address the entrenched bigotry: WFH is not enough to overcome entrenched bigotry due to the dominance of men in corporate India.
• May fail to address the bias: Harvard study finds that gender bias dominates decision-making on promotions.
  • Women account for over 30 % of the workforce in Information technology (IT) industry, but there are only a few in leadership positions.
  • Unlikely to change some notions: E.g. there is a notion that women with children are considered less committed to work whereas men who have children are held to be more responsible.
• Does not dramatically increase female participation rates in the workforce: For improving this, more lower-middle-class women need to be employed in factories — in garments, defence, automobiles.

Conclusion: WFH is thus, a first small step towards a level playing field.