Against Blanket Prognoses on the Implications of Work-from-Home for Women : The Moderating Role of Career Identity Salience

Work-from-home was adopted at an unprecedented scale worldwide as a result of COVID. Now the work practice is expected to stay post-pandemic as well, in some form. However, as regards its impact on women workers, researchers and practitioners often discuss work-from-home in absolute and conflicting terms. Some deem work-from-home as advantageous to women, while others consider it disadvantageous. This paper blends the Job Demands-Resources model and Identity Theory to argue that work-from-home holds both advantages and disadvantages for women workers. But more significantly, a woman’s career identity salience moderates both the positive and negative impacts of work-from-home’s advantages and disadvantages. That is, work-from-home may increase/decrease job demands or resources, resulting in an increase/decrease in negative/positive outcomes for women. But the extent of the impact on outcomes is moderated by a woman’s career identity salience, which is the relative importance she associates with her work role and career identity. Academically, this paper adds to the relatively-scarce work on workers’ career identities in the context of work-from-home. Practically, the paper highlights how organizations may tailor policies and interventions basis career identity salience, a readily gauged characteristic, to make work-from-home truly work for women