The rise of the remote husband

[brooklynite]

The Economist

In Costa Mesa, a city in California’s wealthy, beachy Orange County, she is working her way up to becoming a partner in the local office of a major law firm; he is an executive at a tech startup based in the Bay Area, more than 400 miles away. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is writing code from their apartment just off-campus, while she attends her classes at Harvard Law School. She is an obstetrician, he works remotely for a tech company; she is an academic at an Ivy League university, he works for a crypto company. All over the country, among the well-heeled and well-educated, a new trend appears to be emerging. When the wives head out in the morning, to their offices, classrooms or hospitals, they are waving goodbye to their husbands, who remain at home.

This is hardly a gender-swapped 1950s revival. The men are still working, after all, not predominantly cooking, cleaning and caring for children. But it does reflect an underappreciated effect of the rise of remote work: the rise of the remote husband.

Men and women still specialise in different kinds of work. Jobs in industries like computer science and engineering are disproportionately performed by men. Teaching and nursing jobs are dominated by women. Professions like law and medicine may still employ more men than women, but the scales are tipping: more women than men are enrolled in law school and medical school. As such, among young couples, she is probably more likely to be going to be a lawyer or a doctor than he is.

Different occupations have also had to take different approaches to remote working. A minority of medical professionals may be able to work remotely, by taking telehealth jobs, but the vast majority have to treat their patients in person. Lawyers may be tied to a specific state or area by their licence and speciality. Meanwhile, the industries which reported the highest level of remote-work flexibility are coding and technology, architecture, engineering and business jobs. About half of people working in computer or mathematical jobs work remotely full-time.

The upshot is that, in aggregate, it is easier for men to work from wherever they please. A survey carried out by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that 38% of working men had the option to work remotely full-time, compared with 30% of women. Roughly half of women report being unable to work remotely at all, compared with 39% of men.

[Happy Hoosier]

1. My wife is a professor at a University...

I work remotely from an office in my house.

Been doing that for 20 years now.

[getagrip_already]

2. We are dual remote....

We both work remotely and have for at least 20 years.

We are empty nesters and can spread out so we aren't in each other's spaces.

[woodsprite]

3. That's like my husband and I.

Not empty nesters yet, but daughter works a full time job at Sherwin and son splits his time 3 ways - school, job, and fiance. If I can time it right, I'll see him for about 30 min in the morning and about 30 min at night if I stay up late enough

We've been remote since covid. I've taken over the dining room and hubby is in my craft room. The plan this summer is to rearrange and reclaim our dining room. Move my crafts down to the basement and I'll create an office down there as well. Hubby can take over the rest of the room he's in so he'll have an office. We work for the same group but since he's in a position that frequently discusses personnel and security, we can't really share a space. I'm perfectly happy working at home. Hubby would like to return to the office, at least as a hybrid plan.

[Tikki]

4. Son works from home...his wife at a hospital.

Just like the article says. This has been going on for years now.

Tikki

[GenThePerservering]

5. Typical Economist

"The men are still working, after all, not predominantly cooking, cleaning and caring for children."

I suppose "cooking, cleaning and caring for children" is not work but some kind of hobby?