The share of remote working has fallen in 2023 from the coronavirus period but was higher than in pre-pandemic years

Women work remotely more often than men

Remote work was started to be measured in the Quality of Work Life Survey in 1997, when only a few per cent of wage and salary earners said they were working remotely. The share grew in strides especially in the 2010s, reached its peak during the corona pandemic and has fallen somewhat after that.

Thirty-seven per cent of female wage and salary earners and 33 per cent of male ones worked remotely in 2023. This is the first time in the Quality of Work Life Survey that remote work was more common among women than men. Men have conventionally worked remotely more often than women. The difference between the sexes had narrowed already in 2018, and it had reversed in 2023.

The Quality of Work Life Surveys for 1997 to 2018 were made as face-to-face interviews, but The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on work life 2021 -survey and the Quality of Work Life Survey in 2023 were carried out as web data collections. Due to the change in the data collection method, the figures for 2021 and 2023 are not fully comparable with earlier years.