Does the welfare regime impact the telework gender stress gap?

Abstract

After decades of slow diffusion, the acceptance of telework has dramatically accelerated during the pandemic crisis, becoming a mainstream work practice. However, little is still known on the impact of telework design on employee stress, particularly when stress is high due to a major health crisis, at a time when it is crucial that organizations help buffer it. Using the welfare regime literature, we study the effects of telework demands/resources factors on stress and the moderating effects of gender in more or less egalitarian welfare regimes, during a pandemic crisis. Analyzing data collected from 4602 respondents in France and Quebec, we find that telework demands (family interference with work, organizational isolation, emotional isolation) impact stress positively in both welfare regimes. We also find that the gender stress gap is higher in a more gender-inegalitarian welfare regime than in a more gender-egalitarian welfare regime. Men's and women's stress is not impacted in the same manner in the two contexts studies. Contributions to research and practice are discussed, along with limitations and potential future research avenues.