As corporate America doubles down on return-to-office mandates, a new gender divide is emerging in the workforce. More women than men are choosing to work remotely, raising fresh questions about gender equity, career advancement, and the future of work in the country.
According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, 36% of employed women reported working from home in the past year, a figure in line with the year prior. Meanwhile, 29% of employed men said they worked from home in 2024, down from 34% the year prior.
Although the rates of women working from home remained consistent, there are more women today in the workforce than nearly ever before, with 77.7% of prime-age women participating in the labor force. The surge of women, especially mothers, in the labor market began during the popularization of hybrid and remote work models following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, data from the Brookings Institution show that remote work is most common for parents, both women and men, with children under five. And mothers of young children have the highest rate of fully remote work across the board.
Working mothers advocate and former operations manager Paige Connell says that the popularity of remote work among women, particularly mothers, comes from the disproportionate caretaking and domestic burdens placed upon women that add to their pre-existing work responsibilities and the unaffordability of childcare.
“If I had a traditional 9-to-5 or 8:30-to-5:30 job and I had to be in the office, it wouldn’t be possible. I’d be paying for before-school care. I’d be paying for after-school care. It just wouldn’t logistically work,” she told Fortune.
Ultimately, she and fellow advocate Paula Faris who runs CARRY Media see these hurdles as the driving force behind working women seeking out flexible work styles. Survey data from Stanford University and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México appears to back up their observations with women consistently reporting more of a desire to work from home, by an average margin of 5 points, in the past five years.
While flexible work modes appear to be preferable to working women and parents, in particular mothers, return to office mandates and in-office incentives pose a renewed threat to women looking to advance in their careers.
Dozens of big companies including Apple, Meta, Google, and JPMorgan Chase have all issued mandates to bring employees back to the office. And aside from these initiatives, a recent KPMG survey found that 86% of CEOs say they’ll reward employees who come into the office with favorable assignments, raises or promotions.
There’s a gender gap for remote workers, too: Women who work remotely receive less feedback on their work and less mentorship compared to men who do so.
Faris sees employers favoring in-person workers as furthering the pre-existing gender divide in the workforce by keeping women from rising to leadership positions, earning bonuses, or staying in the workforce all together.
“A lot of mothers may have no choice but to stay home because they can’t find or afford childcare,” she told Fortune. “And of course, it’s the woman that’s going to have to stay home because she’s making less compared to working fathers. That’s the motherhood penalty.”
