Hybrid work has brought many real benefits. Greater flexibility can make it easier to manage work alongside family responsibilities, personal commitments and other demands. But it has also created new challenges, particularly for professional couples trying to build two careers alongside a shared life.
When work and family life increasingly overlap, couples can face difficult questions about how to share responsibilities at home and support both careers.
My colleague and I became interested in this topic because we could see both sides of hybrid work in our own lives. The flexibility was valuable, but it didn't always make balancing work and the rest of life easier.
We wanted to understand what helps some couples make hybrid work arrangements work for them.
We interviewed couples where both partners were trying to build successful careers alongside a shared life. A unique aspect of our research was that we interviewed both partners, allowing us to understand not just individual experiences of hybrid work but also how couples navigate it together.
