Fathers more likely than mothers to work from home, UK data shows

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Fathers are more likely than mothers to split their working time between home and the office, according to new analysis by the UK’s Office for National Statistics.

Hybrid working has become the “new normal” for about a quarter of working adults since the pandemic, the statistics agency said on Monday as it published figures collected up to October this year.

But there are big divisions within the workforce between those who are able to benefit from greater flexibility — generally older employees in more senior positions with higher level qualifications — and those whose job requires them to be present in the workplace.

Parents were more likely to follow a hybrid working pattern, the ONS found, with 35 per cent of those surveyed between April and June saying they worked partly at home, compared with 24 per cent of non-parents.

However, fathers were far more likely to be hybrid workers than mothers — with 41 per cent splitting their time between home and the workplace, compared with just 30 per cent of mothers.

The ONS did not give an explanation for this finding, but it could reflect the fact that women are already more likely to be outside the workforce for family reasons, or to work part-time.

Women also represent a larger share of the workforce in sectors such as teaching, retail or care where face-to-face work is the norm, while men are better represented in sectors such as IT where remote working is prevalent.

Among non-parents, working habits differed little by gender, with 25 per cent of women and 24 per cent of men following a hybrid working pattern.

The figures underline the extent to which parents have become reliant on post-pandemic flexibility to manage their family responsibilities — and could struggle as employers become stricter about office attendance rules.

Londoners have been slower to return to the office than their counterparts in other global cities, but firms such as EY and PwC are among big employers who have recently begun taking tougher line on attendance.  

Civil servants, until now more likely to work from home than their private sector counterparts, were told last month that they would need to spend at least 60 per cent of their working hours in the office, with the government again starting to monitor and publish data on attendance.

When people do work from home, they use the hour saved by skipping their commute to sleep and exercise more, the ONS found.

A survey conducted in March showed that people working from home on a given day spend an average of 25 minutes more on “sleep and rest” and 15 minutes more on exercise, sport or wellbeing.