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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Wired to the World, Chained to the Home

Telework in Daily Life

How does working at home change people's activity patterns, social networks, and their living and working spaces? How will it change the way we plan houses and communities in the future? Will telecommuting solve many of society's ills, or create new ghettos?

Gurstein combines a background in planning, sociology of work, and feminist theory with qualitative and quantitative data from ten years of original research, including in-depth interviews and surveys, to understand the socio-spatial impact of home-based work on daily life patterns. She analyzes the experiences of teleworkers including employees, independent contractors, and self-employed entrepreneurs, and presents significant findings regarding the workload, mobility, the distinct differences according to work status and gender, and the tensions in trying to combine work and domestic activities in the same setting. As organizational structures, technology, and family priorities continue to change, the often overlooked phenomenon of teleworkers has important implications on everything from employment policies to community planning and design.


256 pages | © 2001

Political Science: Public Policy


Table of Contents

Figures and Tables Acknowledgments 1. Telework As Restructured Work 2. Profiling the Teleworker: Contextualizing Telework 3. Working at Home and Being at Home: Blurred Boundaries 4. A Strategy of a Dispensable Workforce: Telework in Canada 5. Localizing the Networked Economy: A Vancouver Case Study 6. "I Don’t Have a Home, I Live in My Office": Transformations in the Spaces of Daily Life 7. Convergence: Telework As Everywhere, Every Time 8. Conclusion Appendices A. Survey Instrument of California Study: Interview Schedule for Study on Social and Environmental Impact of Working at Home B. Survey Instrument of Canadian Survey: Telework and Home-Based Employment Survey C. Respondent Occupations, California Study D. Respondent Occupations, Canadian Survey Notes Bibliography Index

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