The demographic that working from home appeals to most is parents. Flexibility with time, location and work responsibilities are all things that appeal to most people, but never is this more the case than when you have kids.
There are several reasons why working at home particularly appeals to parents:
Contents
1. Child Care
The astronomical cost of child care and difficulties in getting a place can mean that it is just not feasible for both parents to enter the traditional work force. It is not unusual for city child care centres to charge well in excess of $100 a day per child.
Child care rebate and child care benefit can help, but many families with two incomes are lucky to receive much child care benefit and child care rebate only helps to up to $150 a week. This means that paying in excess of $800 a week for child care for two children even after government assistance is not unusual.
The other problem is that child care spots can be difficult to secure. Many parents are finding that even if they put their child’s name down while pregnant, it can still take a long time for a spot to become available.
There is never enough time
2. Time Flexibility
Even for parents who can find child care spots and can afford to pay for child care or their kids are school aged, the lack of time flexibility in the traditional work force is an issue. Kids get sick and kids have school holidays. Working from home means that you can still care for your child when they are sick at home and not lose a whole work day. You can also arrange to have school holidays off. You can also arrange your work hours to just be while your child is at kindergarten or during school hours.
These things can be possible in a non-home based job, but it is very hard to find.
3. The Desire to bring up your own Children
Although may parents are fine with their children going to child care, others want to be there for every milestone and moment. Working from home is a way to achieve this while still having a work outlet and income.
4. No commute
It is not just the time spent working at a job that takes away from other things that you would rather be doing, but the time spent commuting. Many commuters, especially in Australia’s bigger cities like Melbourne and Sydney spend a lot of time commuting each day. A study showed that the average one way commute in Sydney is 34 minutes, meaning nearly 6 hours a week. A NRMA survey showed 24% of Sydneysiders had a commute of at least an hour and a half a day. An extra 6 hours a week can make working from home seem very attractive and can be the difference between having dinner with your children or being lucky to see them for a few moments before bed time.
What do you think are the biggest benefits of working from home?
