Working at Hdome: Experiences of Skilled White Collar Workers

Abstract Based on a comprehensive literature review and detailed semistructured interviews with skilled workers who work at home, this article explores six research areas: reasons for working at home, the creation and maintenance of home/work boundaries, problems of isolation, distractions and temptations facing at-home workers, workaholism, and gender differences. The results indicate that white collar workers usually choose to work at home to reduce work/family conflicts or because of factors in the external labor market. Problems of creating and maintaining home/work boundaries, isolation, distractions and temptations at home, and workaholism do exist, but there was evidence that they may have been exaggerated in previous writing about at-home work. A combination of gender and life course stage better predicts differences in the experiences of the interviewees than does gender alone. We are grateful for the comments of Rebecca G. Adams, Julie V. Brown, and two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of this paper.