The Home as Workplace: A Challenge for Housing Research

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the increasing use of the home as a workplace and establish its significance for housing studies. Firstly, the article sketches its historical growth founded in technological and business model changes. Using cross-country datasets, it identifies variations across the EU in the scale and characteristics of home working, which by 2015 was the practice for about 1 in 6 EU workers, a ratio that has been greatly boosted by responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Secondly, the article considers the implications of increasing home working for housing studies. This is illustrated through a consideration of influences on our understanding of housing demand, particularly in terms of housing form and location. Further, we consider consequences for other areas of theory on the meaning of home, boundaries between public and private realms, and gender perspectives on the division of domestic work and space.