New report shows telework keeps women in the workforce, reduces hiring discrimination

Link to report:
https://nationalpartnership.org/report/who-works-from-home-remote-work-gender-equity-access-gap/

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 30, 2026 – Today, the National Partnership for Women & Families and The 75 Million released new research analyzing who teleworks and offering guidance for how to effectively and equitably implement telework policies. The analysis, “Who Works from Home? Remote Work, Gender Equity and the Access Gap” reveals:

• Women make up the majority of people working from home. A quarter of working women work from home at least some hours, compared to one in five working men.
• Women telework more than men. Across nearly every demographic group – by race, age, disability, marital status, parental status and more – women workers are working from home at higher rates than men.
• More than nine million women workers are fully remote, working all their hours off-site. That’s half of the overall number of women who telework.

“Telework can provide clear benefits for workers and employers, yet access to such opportunities is too often uneven and arbitrary,” said Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families and co-lead of The 75 Million. “Our workplaces — and the people who lead them — should not be stuck in the past, nor beholden to old models that assume work participation can only be structured in one, 5-day a week in-person design. Policies informed by research and worker needs without bias are essential to create productive workplaces that work for everyone.”

“Telework is not a silver bullet – it is just one tool for enhancing workplace flexibility and improving gender equity, and it is one that is not available to millions of workers – especially workers who are paid low wages or have lower educational attainment,” said Katherine Gallagher Robbins, senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “All workers still need living wages, equal pay, affordable child care, paid family and medical leave and more to be able to successfully balance work and family responsibilities.”

“Working from home has the potential to improve the lives of workers – at home and on the job – while boosting economic growth and supporting rural economies,” said Tanya Goldman, senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “We should act now to create public policy for a modern economy that takes advantage of this long-ignored opportunity to make life better for working women.” The report recommends that public policies should play a role in governing telework to protect the interests of workers, including thoughtful design and implementation of telework programs, anti-discrimination training, new policies to promote workplace flexibilities, reducing occupational segregation and improving the quality of all jobs.

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