"Undoing Gender" at Home? Men's Working from Home, the Domestic Division of Labour, and Fertility among UK Couples

This thesis examines whether and how working from home (WFH) shapes fertility among UK couples. It argues that WFH matters for fertility not simply because it provides flexibility, but because of whether and how it reshapes the gendered division of domestic labour. Existing research reports contradictory associations between WFH and fertility, partly because it treats WFH as an individual-level arrangement, typically women's, overlooking how partners' interdependent arrangements shape childbearing. I shift the analytical focus to couple-level WFH arrangements, centring men's WFH and specifying the conditions under which it may support domestic gender equality and fertility. Building on Gender Revolution Theory and the "undoing gender" perspective, I show that the fertility implications of WFH depend on whether it reduces women's work-family conflicts by accommodating existing gender roles, or instead supports a more equal division of domestic labour, particularly through men's increased participation. Using dyadic data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2024) and occupational-level WFH prevalence from the UK Labour Force Survey, I conduct three empirical analyses to test this framework across domestic labour, realised fertility, and fertility intentions. Across these analyses, a consistent pattern emerges. Men's WFH is associated with more equal domestic labour and higher fertility under enabling conditions, such as dual full-time employment, longer commuting times, and egalitarian gender norms. However, under more traditional arrangements, it is even associated with lower fertility, such as in modified male breadwinner arrangements, short commuting contexts, and traditional gender norms. Women's WFH shows no consistent pattern across outcomes and is even negatively associated with fertility among dual full-time working parents. These findings show that the stalled second stage of the Gender Revolution in the UK reflects not only lagged normative change, but also structural barriers embedded in contemporary employment relations, including how flexible working is accessed, used, and gendered within couples.