What Works for Her? How Work-from-home Digital Jobs Affect Female Labor Force Participation

Study Context

Earning income is a means of livelihood, dignity and respect. Despite women contributing more to the household, they are able to exert less power in their families and in society. Social norms may hold women back from entering the labor force in order to maintain the established power dynamic within the household. In India, the belief that, when women work for wages, it is an indicator of low family status can encourage women’s seclusion from the labor force. This project aims to provide experimental evidence to show how social norms may constrain female labor force participation by providing newer digital job opportunities and paid work-from-home opportunities.

The study results will be directly relevant for labor policies. If digital jobs through smartphones indeed increase employment levels, subsequent income levels and agency, mental health, dignity, and other wellbeing outcomes, then providing more home-based jobs for women could be an important policy solution for solving massive under-employment problems among women and youth.

Study Design

Through a six-armed randomized control evaluation, the research observes how providing more suitable employment to women may change women’s employment status and job performance, if at all, and the effects of this employment on women’s overall agency, mental health, dignity, and social norms.

Women are provided with work-from-home (WfH) and work-from-center (WfC) jobs at different payment levels to understand the importance of the existing constraints affiliated with outside work. As payment levels increase in the WfC arms, the “outside costs” of women’s work do not change, only the social signal associated with the payment level changes. Further, the study randomizes the work arrangement to be either flexible or fixed for work at different payment levels.

Results and Policy Lessons

We find that 56% of wives started working from home, while only 27% took up office jobs, matching India’s female labor force participation rate. Surprisingly, wages doubling household income did not significantly affect entry. A parallel experiment with husbands showed more responsiveness to wages and no preference for the job location. A follow-up experiment to uncover the underlying mechanisms finds that introducing an observable two-minute daily check-in at the office decreased home job take-up by 25% (explaining half the home-office difference), driven by women from less progressive households. Taken together, the experiments suggest that even beyond practical constraints, domesticity constraints—the belief that a woman’s place is at home—restrict women’s labor market entry in India. Without changes to these constraints, home-based jobs may represent the most immediate path to increase women’s labor force participation.