Always there culture : Home office and the struggle of Mexican women for work/life balance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract: Working Mexican mothers have been experiencing drastic changes in their way of life due to the forced adaptation of their office work into a ‘Home office’ mode. The reason of this sudden change was brought by the Covid-19 pandemic which prompted governments and companies to enforce lockdowns and social distancing as measures to prevent the contagion. This pushed working women to juggle work and home simultaneously what brought a series of unforeseen challenges when trying to achieve a balance in their lives. The aim of this study is to examine how the combination of remote work through new communication technologies, family life and identities impact the work/life balance of Mexican working mothers during the pandemic. Based on the literature about Telework, media and communication, work / life balance and various gender studies, a qualitative interview was conducted with 8 Mexican working mothers in order to better understand the issue from their experience and standpoint, therefore a phenomenological perspective was employed. The analysis showed that one of the main causes for work related anxiety and stress in working women is the 'always there' culture (permanent connectivity) because it lets work interfere with other areas of private life and also because it was shown to cause disparities between workers by assigning most of the work to those who are ‘always there’. In addition, the participants demonstrated an increase in emotional work in the workplace and in private life. In the work sphere, it was found that women find it more difficult to read the emotions of others through mediated communication and therefore they must do extra emotional work to make more accurate interpretations when interacting with others. In the sphere of private life, women also showed an increase in emotional work by acting as a support network and being ‘always there’ for family, friends and colleagues with the aid of new communication technologies. The results indicate that the ‘always there’ culture does have an impact in the work/life balance of Mexican working mothers. Based on the findings, companies and individuals should make a joint effort to mitigate the effects of permanent connectivity in order to prevent work from interfering with other aspects of family life, thus helping the WLB of working women.