The Role of Women in Telework
1. Introduction
A crying baby, a pot which is about to spill over, a ring at the doorbell while hanging on the phone trying to get a good deal with a business partner... And in the middle of all that a mother, wife and business woman who tries to get the situation under control. Can you imagine the scenario? Is this the picture women will have to face in the future if they neither want to neglect their business career, nor their family life? We live in a time where everybody is using computers, e-mail and the Internet – everybody is connected through the world wide web. This gives us many more possibilities in the field of how to do our work. It seems to be convenient, doing your job out of your home. However, it is not always as easy as it sounds.
This paper will first of all give an idea of what telework is, compare pros and cons and will then, in particular from a woman’s point of view, explore how telework will affect the currently separate spheres of home, work and family.
2. What is telework?
This part of the dossier will give a definition of telework, describe its development and finally tell something about the number of people who are teleworking.
2.1 Definition
Telework can be defined as “carrying out a distance-work in direct connection with the head office or other offices through the use of communication and information technologies" (Nilles 1996). According to Höller, Pils and Zlabinger (1999) there are several different forms of telework, e.g. working at home, in a satellite centre, which are centres close to the workers’ homes, containing all the technology they need, or doing mobile telework.
2.2 Development
As described on the internet homepage of JALA International the term “telework” first appeared in the 1970’s in the United States and was mainly coined by Jack Nilles who nowadays is also known as “the father of telecommuting and teleworking” (Hunter 1999). Reasons for the development of telework were on the one hand,
A crying baby, a pot which is about to spill over, a ring at the doorbell while hanging on the phone trying to get a good deal with a business partner... And in the middle of all that a mother, wife and business woman who tries to get the situation under control. Can you imagine the scenario? Is this the picture women will have to face in the future if they neither want to neglect their business career, nor their family life? We live in a time where everybody is using computers, e-mail and the Internet – everybody is connected through the world wide web. This gives us many more possibilities in the field of how to do our work. It seems to be convenient, doing your job out of your home. However, it is not always as easy as it sounds.
This paper will first of all give an idea of what telework is, compare pros and cons and will then, in particular from a woman’s point of view, explore how telework will affect the currently separate spheres of home, work and family.
2. What is telework?
This part of the dossier will give a definition of telework, describe its development and finally tell something about the number of people who are teleworking.
2.1 Definition
Telework can be defined as “carrying out a distance-work in direct connection with the head office or other offices through the use of communication and information technologies" (Nilles 1996). According to Höller, Pils and Zlabinger (1999) there are several different forms of telework, e.g. working at home, in a satellite centre, which are centres close to the workers’ homes, containing all the technology they need, or doing mobile telework.
2.2 Development
As described on the internet homepage of JALA International the term “telework” first appeared in the 1970’s in the United States and was mainly coined by Jack Nilles who nowadays is also known as “the father of telecommuting and teleworking” (Hunter 1999). Reasons for the development of telework were on the one hand,
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