Remote work has long been framed as a structural win for women. This view deserves closer scrutiny.
Research from the OECD shows that unpaid work remains unevenly distributed across genders in most developed economies, including Australia. In fact, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports an additional nine or so hours per week performed by women on domestic work when compared to men.
And when paid work moves into the home, this structural imbalance is reinforced, not alleviated.
Think about it – when was the last time you heard a man celebrating the fact that they can now put on a load of washing between meetings? Or spoke about the convenience of working from home as it related to housework in general?
We probably don’t hear about this for the same reason we saw men flocking back to the office in disproportionate numbers after COVID lockdowns.
They know it’s not actually the better deal when it comes to their careers.
When your workplace becomes the same place you perform unpaid labour, your focus is inevitably spread. This reflects the structural expectations placed on women within households, rather than any failure of individual discipline.
Over time, this pressure compounds in ways that are less visible than missed deliverables but more consequential in shaping how careers develop.
There is also a reputational dimension, where existing assumptions about commitment and ambition can be reinforced in environments where visibility is reduced.
Because there is certainly nothing wrong with being the stay at home parent – even though research does unequivocally reveal financial disadvantages for women. Empowering women is also not about pushing them to act in identical ways to men.
But if we wish to ensure that women can access the same set of options available to men, this must begin with understanding the truth of any situation.
In the work-from-home debate, the following four dynamics must be considered when evaluating where and how paid work is undertaken by women.
Domestic proximity increases cognitive load
Working from home places professional effort inside the same physical environment as domestic responsibility – an overlap that creates constant low-level decision-making and fragmented attention.
This overlap introduces a constant layer of low-level decision-making that interrupts sustained concentration.
This is because physical proximity to domestic tasks increases the likelihood that they are acted upon during the workday, even when they are not urgent.
The impact accumulates gradually, reducing the capacity for deep work and slowing the development of judgement over time.
Reduced visibility constrains opportunity
Career progression is rarely linear or formally structured. It emerges through observation, trust, advocacy, and purposeful happenstance.
Many of the interactions that influence perception occur outside structured meetings, emerging through conversation, shared problem-solving, and proximity to decision-making.
The informal interactions that shape perception, such as impromptu discussions, shared problem-solving, and exposure to decision-making are, unsurprisingly, harder to replicate in distributed teams. Remote work obviously reduces the frequency of these types of cross-team collaboration, limiting exposure to new ideas and networks.
Visibility also operates as a form of currency that shapes outcomes, influencing access to responsibility, advancement, and inclusion in critical discussions.
Reduced presence limits the number of moments where that currency is built.
Mentorship and pattern recognition weaken remotely
Professional development depends on consistent exposure to experienced operators.
In-person environments accelerate this process because they provide access to high-fidelity information. Tone, hesitation, and informal feedback all contribute to understanding how decisions are made – signals that are diluted in digital communication.
Without this context, knowledge can accumulate without translating into the level of judgement required for leadership.
This is particularly relevant for women navigating leadership pathways, including those building companies in environments where informal access to experience is already uneven.
Community density drives momentum
Environments that bring professionals together in close proximity create faster feedback loops and stronger alignment around standards. This reduces the distance between problem and response, and makes performance visible within a shared context.
This dynamic is evident across both high-performing industries, and in startup ecosystems where proximity accelerates access to insight, opportunity, and critical networks.
For women across the workforce, in fact, proximity expands access to relationships, context, and advocacy, which in turn shapes long-term progression beyond what flexibility alone can provide. Because domestic responsibilities will always exist. But where work is undertaken determines whether these responsibilities compete with professional growth or sit alongside it.