Abstract:

Remote work has become a central feature of contemporary organizing, yet we know little about how its use unfolds over time and how it becomes intertwined with gendered career dynamics. Drawing on Work-Family Border theory, this study conceptualizes remote work as a border management practice that individuals mobilize in response to changing work and family demands across the life course. We argue that the use of remote work is temporally patterned and event-contingent, rather than static or uniform.

Using longitudinal administrative data spanning over a decade (2014 – 2025) and covering more than 43,000 employees of a large German automotive company, we examine gender differences in actual remote work usage, how they evolve with time, age and around critical employment transitions, including returns from parental leave and increases in contractual working hours. Our analyses reveal a persistent gender gap in remote work usage that varies systematically over time. Especially women’s remote work usage increases sharply following family-related career interruptions, and looking at the development of gender differences before, during, and after the pandemic, the gender gap has widened. These findings advance Work-Family Border theory by highlighting the dynamic and gendered nature of border management practices and by showing how ostensibly gender-neutral work arrangements become embedded in gendered career trajectories. More broadly, the study contributes to organization theory by demonstrating how temporal and cultural dynamics as well as employment events shape the enactment of flexibility within organizational settings.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Gender in Management

Keywords: COVID-19 and gender perspectives;Gender discrimination and industry specific features

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Prof Gari Walkowitz