# 1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased existing gender gaps in Mexico. Women’s labor force participation dropped more than men’s, and women’s re-employment slowed. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) in Mexico, the participation rate in the first trimester of 2020 was 76.4 percent for men and 45.1 percent for women. One year later, women’s participation rate dropped by almost four percentage points while men’s dropped two percentage points.<sup>2</sup> At the same time, approximately 1.45 million female workers had not returned to work one year later compared with 0.6 million male workers.<sup>3</sup> Social distancing measures, unanticipated lockdowns, and the collapse of in-person schooling have made the pandemic harder for women, especially those with household, eldercare, and childcare responsibilities. These circumstances have translated into a need for more flexibility for women in all aspects. Information and communication technologies<sup>4</sup> have played an essential role in increasing the possibilities for some workers to work from home.

Teleworking was crucial for many women to keep their income and jobs and relieve their double burden of childcare and household tasks (Berniell, Gasparini, Marchionni, & Viollaz, 2021). During the COVID-19 pandemic, 93 percent of employed women who work from home reported having done domestic chores compared with 68 percent of working men.<sup>5</sup> This unequal burden places women in a weaker position within the labor market (Dominguez V. & Brown G., 2013) and is mirrored in labor force participation, especially by age group.

By facilitating telework, workers are provided with the flexibility to set their working hours and engage in work-life balance arrangements, saving cost and time. Working from home involves not incurring _fixed monetary costs,_<sup>_6_</sup> such as public transportation, and _fixed time costs,_ such as commuting time (Edwards & Field-Hendrey, 2002). Furthermore, it gives additional time to the worker to reconcile work and care responsibilities as _home production_ could be done _jointly._<sup>7</sup> Moreover, telework could be conducive to choosing a more convenient childcare arrangement, mainly when there is a lack of trust in the childcare system, as in the case of Mexico (Muller & Jaen, 2020).

As schools struggled to return to normal during the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has been an opportunity for many families when childcare was unavailable. This type of work arrangement did not have a legal framework in Mexico until December 2020, when the government approved Article 311 of the Federal Law of Work to regulate teleworking conditions, obligations, and rights. The Home Office law considers activities done at the worker’s home for more than 40 percent of the time and under the employer’s direction. As part of this agreement, the employer must provide the worker with devices

> 2 Labor force participation in 2021Q1 was 41.7 percent for women and 74.2 percent for men (ENOE, INEGI).

> 3In 2020Q1, the number of workers was 33.3 million for men and 21.8 million for women. In 2021Q1, 32.7 million men and 20.3 million women.

> 4 In Mexico, there has been an increase in the use of the internet in the last decade. According to the ENDUTIH, in 2020, 72 percent of the population use the internet. However, 93.8 percent use it to communicate, 91 percent to look for information, and 89 percent to access the social network.

> 5 INEGI, Telephone Survey on COVID-19 and the Labor Market (ECOVID-ML) July 2020.

> 6In the literature on labor markets, fixed costs are those that do not vary with the number of hours a person works.

> 7 A pioneering paper, Edwards & Field-Hendrey (2002) proposed that flexible work enables women to better integrate employment and family roles.

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