Home Office work: challenges for women in the family context

Abstract

The form of working from home has been increasingly common and has been growing gradually, having been intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic and becoming a trend among companies, in Brazil and around the world. Adopting this way of working brings benefits, such as greater productivity. However, for women it can become a challenge, as working from home can also bring disadvantages, such as work overload, physical exhaustion and also affecting mental health, which ends up having a direct impact on their lives. The general objective of this research was to analyze the main challenges that women face when adopting a home office in relation to their professional and family lives. This is descriptive research with a qualitative approach. Data collection occurred through the application of a questionnaire, with the aim of verifying the positive and negative effects of home office applied to women’s work, associated with the context of family and professional life. From the answers obtained, it is possible to verify the main results that highlighted a positive condition of the home office, when compared to in-person work, which in a certain way did not have a harmful impact on productivity, since it allows women to participate more of family life.