Throughout the Covid pandemic, it has been well documented that women have shouldered the lion’s share of the burden when it comes to caring for relatives, homeschooling children, and other domestic tasks.  It should perhaps come as no surprise, therefore, that research from UConn shows that women face more interruptions in their work when they work from home.

“The gender divide was particularly surprising to us. We had heard anecdotally that it occurred, but now we have empirical evidence that women are interrupted more frequently, both with work-related and personal responsibilities,” the researchers say.

“Women have paid an additional price since the onset of the pandemic,” they continue.  “This is more than just an inconvenience. Work interruptions are associated with reduced employee performance and higher levels of emotional exhaustion.”

Minimizing interruptions

The researchers quizzed a few hundred employees from a range of industries, all of whom were working from home in the United States.  Each participant was a knowledge worker with either children or other dependents at home and with a spouse or partner.

Across the board, the respondents reported an increase in interruptions since the pandemic began, but the nature of these interruptions had changed significantly.

“We found that the burden of interruptions was not shared equally, as women reported higher levels of all types of non-work interruptions, suggesting that women experience more fragmented time than men,” the researchers explain.

This was even the case when both partners were working from home, with most of the household burden falling on the woman.  This translated into an increase in interruptions for women, which was a situation that was already present before the pandemic, but exacerbated during it.

While the interruptions for family-related reasons could be predicted to a certain extent, women also reported suffering from more interruptions from colleagues and managers when they worked from home.

Dedicated space

One suggestion for improving matters is to create a dedicated space for working that can help to minimize the number of interruptions people receive when working from home.

“Having a dedicated home office seems to be a mitigating factor,” the researchers say. “Employees with a dedicated workspace reported less interruptions, and that makes sense. But some of our survey participants had to work at the kitchen table or in the living room so that they could supervise young children at the same time. For women, it is hard to ‘find a place to hide’ to get work done.”

What is interesting is that female employees also reported receiving more interruptions from colleagues and managers than their male peers.  The researchers suggest this might be due to the supposed willingness of women to help colleagues.  They recommend setting expectations that requests are made via email rather than telephone, and ideally to schedule project updates rather than sending random questions throughout the day.

“The shift toward intensive work-from-home has uncovered an important source of gender inequality,” the researchers conclude. “The results of our study provide valuable insights to help understand and improve work experiences not only during the lingering pandemic but also in the future, as remote work becomes the norm long-term for many employees.”