The return to office is in full swing, but you might notice more men around the water cooler.
According to the Department of Labor, men are returning to the office in greater numbers than women. In 2024, 29% of employed men reported working from home, down from 34% the previous year. Approximately 36% of women worked from home last year, unchanged from 2023.
What’s behind these numbers? It’s likely a result of return-to-office initiatives in male-dominated industries like tech, Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed, told Yahoo Finance.
Women accounted for only about a quarter of computer and mathematical jobs in 2024, according to the data. For some roles, like computer programmers and computer hardware engineers, the share is even lower — 17.8% and 14.3% — respectively.
“Many of these return-to-office efforts are coming at a time when demand for workers in male-dominated industries has weakened, giving employers the upper hand,” Stahle said.
As for the unbudging number of women working remotely over that two-year period, there could be an explanation for that finding as well, according to Stahle.
Female-dominated fields such as private education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and state and local government have been less affected by return-to-work mandates, he said. “Many of the jobs in these industries are already in-person roles.”
Whether women are trying to move up or break into fields where office time is required, the trend away from remote arrangements could have far-reaching repercussions for gender equity.
Here’s why: Nearly 9 in 10 CEOs said in a 2024 survey that they “will reward employees who make an effort to come into the office with favorable assignments, raises, or promotions.”
That could also play out in the gender wage gap that has persisted across industries for decades. Last year, women earned an average of 85% of what men earned, according to Pew Research Center.
Will the pay gap get worse if in-office attendance is a prerequisite for pay bumps?
“In theory, remote work can be viewed as either a positive or negative amenity: It may offer greater scheduling flexibility, enhancing work-life balance, but it may also limit access to face-to-face mentoring and raise concerns about potential career growth penalties,” said Zoë Cullen, a lead researcher for a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study on remote work.
We do know that roughly 8 in 10 CEOs envision a full return to the office in the next three years, and many of those making it mandatory have threatened employees with termination if they fail to follow the company’s return-to-office mandate.
So far, the types of jobs being hit by these mandates have been well-paying, white-collar roles, Stahle said.
“If a worker can’t or chooses not to return to the office and loses their higher-paying job as a result, that will have clear implications for the pay gap and the economy,” he said.
According to the Department of Labor, men are returning to the office in greater numbers than women. (Getty Creative) ·Maskot via Getty Images
Remote work has been facing into the wind all year. Organizations that describe their workplace environment as remote shrank dramatically between 2024 and 2025, according to a study by Payscale.
Despite the pressure, plenty of workers, not just women, are standing their ground on full-blown return-to-office attendance and are willing to take a pay cut to hold on to some flexibility.
A majority of job candidates would accept a pay cut to work remotely, according to a new survey by Criteria Corp. On average, employees are willing to accept a 25% pay cut for partly or fully remote roles, according to the NBER study.
All that said, the balance of power has shifted.
In 2023, when workers had the upper hand in a tight labor market, the odds of being penalized for not coming into the office were low, or in many cases, not realistic for employers, who were well aware that workplace flexibility was one way that they could hang on to and lure skilled workers.
Return-to-office demands by many tech-oriented employers, including Amazon, Google, and Meta, hit a fever pitch earlier this year.
“In a softening labor market, employers have more leverage to demand in-office work,” Marc Cenedella, founder of Ladders Inc., a career site for jobs that pay $100,000 or more, told Yahoo Finance. “The great resignation is over. The great return is upon us.”
Compromise, however, has inched in. And that playbook can work for many women, who still shoulder a disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities for children and aging parents, and need and value flexibility more than men.
Flexible work benefits have stabilized enough to suggest a permanent place in employers’ benefits, according to a new SHRM Employee Benefits Survey.
Overall, hybrid office environments — where attendance is generally three days a week for so-called knowledge workers (not front-line ones) — are the norm now at more than half of companies, followed by traditional office environments at 27%, with remote-first environments making up only 16% of office types, per Payscale data.
In fact, while 4 in 10 organizations deployed a return-to-office mandate in recent years, an increasing number have done a bit of soft shoe around the specific requirements and have loosened the rules depending on job type and for those who are top performers.
Long-term trends in the workforce could ultimately help women gain ground.
“As the baby boomer generation ages and companies grapple with fewer younger workers and our labor market tightens, companies can’t afford to overlook any segment of the workforce, especially women,” said Gwenn Rosener, co-founder of recruiting firm FlexProfessionals.
Because fewer people are born each year, our workforce is going to start to shrink, and we need workers to make products, provide services, and pay taxes, Bradley Schurman, a demographic strategist, told Yahoo Finance.
“So, as we enter this period of the Super Age, with more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18, this is going to create market conditions that are going to increase the demand for workers of all ages because the supply is so low,” he said. “Women will be able to negotiate for greater benefits and for greater salaries and more flexibility. And it’s not just women, disabled and other marginalized groups will likely benefit too.”
