More and more women in the age group of 35-45 years are opting for jobs which give them the option of working from home (WFH) even at lesser salaries and lower scale of the corporate hierarchy for the sake of striking a good balance between their family interests and career opportunities, says a survey.

The survey, conducted jointly by industry body Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and job portal GharSeNaukri (GSN), found that women from Delhi-NCR, with good work experience and professional qualifications, are the ones opting for maximum WFH, followed by Karnataka and Mumbai in Maharashtra.

Of the respondents in the survey, 20 per cent women from Delhi-NCR said they would like to opt for WFH while in Bengaluru and other major cities of Karnataka this figure was 12 per cent and 10 per cent for Mumbai.

The trend is yet to catch up in non-metros as there are lesser job opportunities for women in those cities, excepting for low-end ones in the value chain. 

The survey found that with increasing problems of commuting, pressure of nuclear families and lack of organised system of domestic help, more and more career women are "sacrificing" their growth opportunities and instead looking for WFH. 

In times of high cost of living, as per the survey, contribution to family income is among the top reasons why women work again (37.9 per cent), besides standing shoulder to shoulder with the menfolk to do well in life. 

"The IT & ITeS sector can offer the maximum potential for work from home, followed by graphic designing and content writing, while at the lower end of value chain, tele-marketing and data entry are the options," it said.

The empirical study was conducted with a cross-section of 1,200 women employees/registered jobseekers on the GSN portal. The majority of respondents (62 per cent) fell under 1-10 years' experience category, out of which 50 per cent had 1-5 years' experience.

The highest number of women job seekers registered with the GSN portal were in the age group of 35-45 years. This might reflect that perhaps young women had the responsibility of child care and preferred to opt for jobs with flexible work options, it said.

Nearly 70 per cent of the employers agreed that work from home option would increase their organisation's productivity, as women hired would balance family and work. Similarly, 80 per cent opined it would be profitable to hire women on part-time basis or work from home to cut down overhead expenses. 

Nearly 75 per cent employers believed that work from home option with flexible hours would have a higher retention rate of employees and develop a brigade of professionals who were connected to a company, knew its work culture and yet worked from home to fulfil targets.