Key points:

  • Remote work has strong appeal, but the allure appears to be even stronger for women. Employed women are about a quarter more likely to say remote work is a reason they are looking for a new job than employed men, according to an Indeed survey.
  • This heightened interest holds across all age groups, as employed women are more likely to cite remote work than employed men across our five major age groups.

Remote work is popular, especially among women. Women with a job are more likely than employed men to cite a desire for remote work as a reason for starting a new job search — and the differences are stark. 

According to data from the Indeed Job Search Survey collected between July 2021 and December 2023, almost 12% of employed male job seekers listed a desire for remote work as a motivation for beginning a recent job search. Over the same period, almost 15% of women said the same. In other words, over the past several years, women have been almost 25% more likely to cite a desire for remote work than men. 

Bar chart titled “Female job seekers ~25% more likely to cite remote work as a job search motivator” shows that 11.8% of employed male job seekers cited remote work, while 14.7% of female job seekers did.
Bar chart titled “Female job seekers ~25% more likely to cite remote work as a job search motivator” shows that 11.8% of employed male job seekers cited remote work, while 14.7% of female job seekers did.

Additionally, these broad results are not driven by the preferences of a specific age group, with gender differences holding up across all major age groups analyzed. The largest difference is for employed job seekers aged 25-34. Women in that group were roughly a third (34%) more likely than men to cite finding remote work as at least part of why they wanted a new job. 

Bar chart titled “Across all ages, women are more motivated by remote work than men” shows that female employed job seekers were more likely to cite remote work as a reason for their job search than male job seekers in all age groups.
Bar chart titled “Across all ages, women are more motivated by remote work than men” shows that female employed job seekers were more likely to cite remote work as a reason for their job search than male job seekers in all age groups.

At the onset of the pandemic, millions of Americans were part of a dramatic experiment in the world of work: They were told to work from home. But while the circumstances behind this sudden change represented a rude awakening to the potential of widespread remote work, its broad appeal has become very clear in the years since. The stark gender differences revealed by our survey are in line with both speculation and evidence that remote work is even more appealing to parents, particularly mothers. The rise of remote work seems to have reduced some of the hit to employment experienced by many mothers. Interestingly, the smallest gender difference around the preference for remote work is for employed job seekers aged 35-44, an age group with many young parents, both male and female. More-similar preferences among workers of these ages could be a sign that more fathers in this age range also value the flexibility provided by remote work. 

Methodology

The Indeed Job Search Survey is an online survey conducted by Indeed intended to capture a representative sample of the US population aged 18-64. From July 2021 to September 2022, the survey was a monthly survey of 5,000 respondents in the US. The survey then shifted to a quarterly frequency and was conducted in December 2022, March 2023, June 2023, September 2023, and December 2023. Each of those quarterly surveys had 15,000 respondents. 

This analysis was conducted using monthly and quarterly survey data collected between July 2021 and December 2023, with the results presented here using data from all waves. Weights were applied to each survey to match respondent distributions across age, educational attainment, race/ethnicity, and sex, with the 2020 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement.

The specific question analyzed in this post was asked only of employed respondents who said they were actively looking for a job. The text of the question is “Why are you looking for a new job? Select all that apply.” The answer corresponding to looking for remote work is “I’m looking for a job where I can work remotely.”