June 10, 2004

Women with children find it difficult to carry on working at offices. Many of them are turning to working from home. Arshia Hasan discusses the various professions women can choose from

“I do web designing from home as I enjoy this activity,” says Asma, an engineer from NED university and the mother of two children aged five and three. Asma was a full-time employee before marriage, but after her marriage her responsibility as a homemaker absorbed most of her time, and she was unable to continue her demanding job with a private firm. She says: “Working from home allows me to balance my work and home life. My younger son is three years old and I can give him all the attention and affection that he needs while ensuring that I don’t get rusty.”

The primary reason for Asma’s employment is to supplement the family income, although the sense of achievement and having a career also matter. “The flexible working hours represent an additional benefit,” she points out. “Working from home allows me to decide on my own timings — I am able to take a small nap in the afternoons and work late at night.” Asma feels that an afternoon nap allows her to focus on her work better and this improves her productivity.

Most other women from Asma’s class ended up waiting for their children to grow up but the problem with that is obvious — a woman who has been out of practice for some time takes longer to adjust to work life, especially at a relatively older age. So if you think that your work life needs to take a back seat while you are looking after your kids, think again.

The number of women working in the information technology field from home is relatively low compared to the number of women working in fashion or education. This, to a large extent, is also explained by the fact that fewer women study information technology. In Pakistan, a large number of women have started their own boutiques from home, but unfortunately not all have been successful in the relatively saturated market.

“I was unable to successfully market my products,” says Samina, a mother of two who ran a boutique for two months but was unable to continue. Samina, like many others, lacked the finance to sustain the normal gestation period that occurs before a business breaks even. For such women, obtaining micro-credit from a local bank would have been a much better option than exiting the market, but this is something that Samina was unaware of.

Farah, a young mother of three children, feels she will soon take up some activity from home. Farah got married at a relatively early age after completing her bachelor’s and has completed her family as well. She now wants to engage in some productive activity but preferably from home because her mother-in-law would not be happy with her leaving the house for too long. She has decided to pursue teaching from home and she is determined to do something to ‘keep herself alive’.

Mariam is successfully running a salon from home. She loves making people look their best so she specializes in bridal make-up. Since the capital costs are minimal, she does not have to rely on any external funding to manage her business. Mariam does not really care about the money she is making because she believes that this is an automatic result rather than the objective. For her, the activity is enjoyable enough to keep her going and working hard.

Women doctors have also very successfully managed their own home clinics. Dr Seema is a very successful homoeopathic doctor who believes in making people happy. One visit to her clinic confirmed this to me. Dr Seema’s husband is very supportive of her work and that definitely does make a difference, “but I am certainly not suggesting that you change your husband if he doesn’t support you. I am advocating the philosophy that ‘where there is a will there is a way’.” In fact Dr Seema has set the trend for others in this field and others have emulated her to set up their own mini clinics. I recently visited Affifa who has her own clinic in her house, and her husband is quite demanding, but she still manages to find time for her passion.

In the education field one finds women teaching from home. The number of women teaching cooking, stitching and similar activities has been on the rise. This enables those involved to focus on their house and in fact improve on the skills needed to be a good homemaker. Other women enter the field of child care or day care centres from home, but be sure you have the patience needed for this if you plan to take up the activity. Giving tuitions is a very lucrative business these days but it does require stamina and dedication.

Some women find it impossible to work from home. “The team work and face to face interaction is something that the home can never simulate,” says Rukhsana, a successful woman who does not believe in working from home. This is because part of the charm of working is to “take a break from home life — I enjoy dressing up and going to work and meeting people, so working from home won’t be an adequate option,” says Faiza. “I’d much rather take a part-time job like teaching than work from home,” agrees Leena, a young teacher at a girls’ school.

My personal all-time favourite work from home activity is writing. I enjoy this and can work with flexible hours. So if you have a flair for writing, some creativity and spare time journalism might be the right activity for you.

Working from home has gained so much popularity in the West that several Internet sites are dedicated to help people work from home. Useful search engines for women who want to achieve something include www.efinancialnews.com, www.ft.com, www.monster.com, www.vault.com. Unfortunately, most of these search engines provide opportunities for US-based citizens. In fact, the concept of working from home has gained so much popularity that men as primary earners have also resorted to working from home, especially in the West where both the husband and wife need to earn.

This concept of both the man and the woman sharing the house and office work together may even serve to consolidate the bond between a husband and wife. Specialization (with women doing housework and men doing office work) works best if the people involved have distinctly different skills. However, there is nothing to suggest that men are more skilled at outside work so the equal sharing concept is intuitively very appealing.

For men, consultancy seems to be a very convenient work-from-home activity. After retirement men who may find it physically taxing to travel long distances but are still mentally very active use consultancy to earn. This concept is not restricted to the West. Shamim is one of the many successful consultants who works from home and runs a lucrative consultancy firm.

All in all, the primary reason for women working from home is additional income. However, there are a few women who do this purely for the satisfaction and for whom the money is the outcome rather than the end objective. Regardless of what the motive, the fact is that working from home is an excellent option for educated women, especially young mothers who can balance their work and home life with flexible work hours. The fields available for working from home are vast and range from education to fashion to information technology.

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