More women for work-from-home jobs, says survey

New Delhi: More and more women in the age group of 35-45 years are opting for jobs which give them the option of working from home (WFH), even if at a lesser salary and lower scale of the corporate hierarchy, for the sake of striking a balance between family, and career opportunities. The information was revealed by a joint survey conducted by ASSOCHAM-GSN.

The survey findings, released before Mother’s Day on May 14, point out that women from Delhi-NCR, with good work experience and professional qualifications, are the ones who are opting for maximum WFH, followed by Karnataka, and Mumbai.

According to the survey, of the respondents in the survey, 20 per cent women from Delhi-NCR said they would like to opt for WFH, while in Bengaluru and other major cities of Karnataka, this figure was 12 per cent, and 10 per cent for Mumbai.

The survey found that with increasing problems of commuting, pressure of nuclear families and lack of organised system of domestic help, more and more career women are “sacrificing” their growth opportunities and looking for WFH.

The survey found that contribution to the family income, in the age of high cost of living,  is among the top reasons why women work again (37.9 per cent), besides standing shoulder to shoulder with the men folk to do well in life. The IT & ITeS sector offer the maximum potential for WFH, followed by graphic designing and content writing, while at the lower end of the value chain, tele-marketing and data entry are the options.  

An empirical study was conducted with a cross section of 1,200 women emp-loyees, or registered jobseekers at GharSeNaukri (GSN) portal.

The majority of the survey respondents’ (62 per cent) fall under 1-10 years’ experience category out of which 50 per cent are with 1-5 years’ experience  

The highest number of women job seekers who registered with the GSN portal fall in the age group of 35 - 45 years. This might be a reflection that perhaps young women have the responsibility of childcare and prefer to do jobs with flexible work options.

Nearly 70 per cent of the employers agreed that the work-from-home option would increase their organization’s productivity, as the women hired shall balance family and work. Similarly, 80 per cent opined it should be profitable to hire women on a part-time basis or work-from-home to cut down on overhead expenses.  

Nearly 75 per cent believed that the work-from-home option, with flexible hours, would have a higher retention rate of employees and develop a brigade of professionals who would be connected to a company, know its work culture and yet work from home to fulfil targets.