Does working from home make work-family balance easier?

About this research

This Pew Research Center report looks at the experiences of working parents in the United States, including how they navigate the demands of work and family life, how they divide responsibilities at home, and how workplace benefits and arrangements shape their experiences.

Why did we do this?

Pew Research Center does research to help the public, the media and decision-makers understand important topics.

This research is part of Pew Research Center’s ongoing effort to understand how Americans navigate work and family life and the changing demands placed on parents.

How did we do this?

The report is based primarily on a Pew Research Center survey of 2,242 U.S. working parents conducted March 2-15, 2026. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel. The survey represents the views of U.S. working parents.

Here are the survey questions used for this report, the detailed responses and the survey methodology.

In addition to survey data, the report also includes analysis of parents in the labor force using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

As many workers face return-to-office mandates, some parents have been able to maintain remote or hybrid work arrangements.

A majority of working parents (65%) say they have a job that cannot be done from home. But 35% say that, for the most part, their job can be done from home. This latter share includes:

• 17% who say they now work from home all or most of the time
• 10% who work from home some of the time
• 9% who rarely or never work from home

These shares are roughly unchanged from 2024, but down significantly from 2020 and 2022 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many workers to shift to telework.

We wanted to understand how working from home impacts parents’ ability to balance work and family life.

These findings are part of a larger survey of 2,242 working parents conducted March 2-15, 2026. Read key findings from the full study.

Working from home doesn’t ease all the challenges of balancing work and family.

It turns out that parents who work from home and those who don’t are about equally likely to experience difficulty in this area.

Similar shares of parents who work from home all or most of the time, some of the time, or rarely or never (including those whose job cannot be done from home) say that:

• Balancing their work and family responsibilities is difficult
• Having a job makes it harder for them to be a good parent
• They’ve felt like they couldn’t give 100% at home because they were juggling work and family responsibilities

Refer to the appendix for detailed tables showing responses by remote work arrangement.

Parents who work from home are more likely to say their work and parenting tasks overlap.

Those who frequently work from home are among the most likely to say they often take care of parenting-related tasks while working.

• 39% of parents who work from home all or most of the time say they do this extremely or very often.

• 28% of parents who work from home some of the time and 25% of those who rarely or never work from home say the same.

When it comes to taking care of work-related tasks while with their children, the pattern is somewhat different.

• About a third of parents who work from home all or most of the time (34%) or some of the time (31%) say they do this often.

• Only 19% of those who rarely or never work from home say the same.

There are some advantages for parents who work from home.

Parents who frequently work from home have an easier time attending their children’s activities compared with those who work from home less often or never.

Two-thirds of parents who work from home all or most of the time say they have a lot of flexibility to attend their children’s activities during regular work hours. A similar share say they’ve rarely or never missed these activities because of work in the past year.

By comparison, 55% or fewer among those who work from home less often or not at all say the same on each question.

Read more about parents’ workplace benefits and flexible work arrangements.