needed to telework and pay for telecommunication services such as the internet and the proportional cost of electricity used for telework purposes, among other benefits.<sup>8</sup> One benefit of telework is the possibility that workers can better balance the demands of paid employment and unpaid household work. However, digital skills and access to technological equipment are not an option for many employees in Mexico, in particular women. Women and men do not have the same opportunities, uses, and access to technology. According to the 2020 ENDUTIH survey,<sup>9</sup> 19 percent of women did not know how to use a computer in 2020 compared with 15 percent of men in the same situation. Moreover, not all Mexicans can afford the cost of a computer. For instance, only one-eighth of women knew how to use a computer but do not have access, unlike one-ninth of men.<sup>10</sup> In this paper, we aim to contribute to understanding women’s labor force and workplace decisions in emerging economies by studying the characteristics of teleworkers in Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic, distinguishing between being an employee or being self-employed. We use data from the National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technology in Households (ENDUTIH) carried out in 2020 to estimate the extent to which telework can influence labor supply decisions. We estimate the probability for men and women to choose between five states: out of the labor force, working on-site salaried, working on-site self-employed, teleworking salaried, or teleworking self-employed using a multinomial framework.

Our paper differs from earlier empirical work on workplace choice<sup>11</sup> as it focuses on telework, adopting a narrower definition of working at home, which considers using computers for work at home and discriminates between self-employed and salaried workers. Moreover, this paper adopts a micro perspective to understand what characteristics determine telework. We argue there are two factors at play: first, the existence of fixed costs to working on-site, and second, the possibility of engaging in the joint production of income and household work.

In addition, we contribute to the literature by considering not only the monetary and time costs of working, but also the potential emotional costs of going to work and leaving a child or loved one in the care of others. Previous literature did not consider the emotional costs that workers may feel when leaving their dependents to someone else’s care, including guilt, anxiety, and uncertainty. Muller & Jaen (2020) show evidence that these feelings arise from social gender norms and affect women’s desire to work in favor of caring for their children. As a result, labor force participation decisions should account

> 8 This law gives employees 9 new rights: (1) receive equipment necessary to perform the job (computer, ergonomic chairs, printers, among others), (2) receive work and salary payment in a timely manner and on stipulated dates, (3) receive compensation for the costs derived from working at home such as internet and electricity service charges, (4) mechanisms that preserve the security of information and data used by workers, (5) the right to disconnect at the end of the working day, (6) balance of work and family responsibilities, (7) receive training, (8) receive social security, and (9) gender perspectives that reconcile personal life and availability of workers.

> 9 National Survey on Availability and Use of Information Technology in Households, ENDUTIH 2020, undertaken by INEGI.

> 10 The set of technological skills is different for women and men across the same level of education. Women at the college level have similar or greater competence in all the capacities related to digital technologies, but that is not true with more complex computer skills. For example, abilities such as creating a spreadsheet or generating and using a database are mainly dominated by men in all the different levels of education ENDUTIH (2020).

> 11 Earlier work had defined all types of home-based work, without focus on the impact of telework (Dominguez V. & Brown G., 2013).

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