Conditions Affecting the Perspective Towards the “Work-From-Home” Setup

Abstract

Despite the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) in the Philippine industry is striving to achieve greater gains because they are able to employ 70% of their staff to work from home. However, within this economy that has been helping the country, inequalities are still present, especially in the work from setup in the new normal. It unfortunately highlights the notion that women’s contribution to domestic work is greater compared to men. From advancing this position, this study aims to describe the narratives of women BPO agents as they express the surrounding conditions that led to their gendered perceptions of the “work from home” (WFH) setup. The authors use qualitative descriptive design and purposive sampling of fourteen (14) women BPO agents working in Cebu as respondents. The paper uses thematic analysis and concludes that the following are the surrounding conditions affecting the views of women on the WFH setup: (a) The opportunity to do both productive and reproductive work; (b) the significance of the age of the children; (c) the impact of support systems; and the (d) consequences of gender stereotypes.