The subjective well-being of homeworkers across life domains

This paper extends the view of homeworking as a type of flexible working by employees in organisations aimed at improving work–life balance and job satisfaction, to a type of work that encapsulates significant changes of work towards increased self-employment and casual work, high proportions of which are performed in people’s homes. Such changes to work represent a reconfiguration of the spatial separation and relationship between place of work and place of residence. Through homeworking, this paper studies how changing geographies of work and workplaces impact on workers’ life satisfaction overall and across various aspects of their lives. Using a large representative longitudinal dataset for the United Kingdom, findings reveal that workers’ satisfaction with their job, income and leisure time is significantly shaped by homeworking and that the employment status (employee versus self-employed) and gender are important elements for understanding how homeworking is related to subjective well-being. Homeworking is positively related with leisure time satisfaction of men and women. Job satisfaction advances of homeworking are only observed for employees, but not the self-employed. Men’s income satisfaction is decreased when they work as self-employed without employees in their homes. Future policies and research concerning workers’ subjective well-being need to pay attention to the continued trend towards individualised work in people’s own homes.