Remote work and divorces

Recently I stumbled upon an interesting article titled “Good marriage has to fall apart” (unfortunately only available in polish). The author tries to analyse what’s the cause behind the increasing rate of divorces in Poland.

After a closer look at the divorce statistics and what they really mean, the author notices that divorce rates calculated separately for urban & rural areas stayed more or less the same over the years. It’s the fact that more and more people moved from rural areas to cities, ie. the urbanisation, that caused the overall increase of the divorce rate.

Going further, the author claims, that it’s the urban lifestyle that inherently doesn’t make the best environment for a long-lasting marriage. The reasons being:

• often the spouses leave the flat at 8am and return after 11 hours (commute, obligatory lunch break etc) — effectively spending most of their time separately; actually most of the life happens during that time: successes, struggles, emotions, other relationships
• the spouses often get back tired, having some other work-related stuff to do because of the competitive work environment; or they focus on their children rather than the spouse, not to lose touch with them
• rural life, in contrast, often included a sort of “common business” (which happened close to home) like a farm or a workshop; this resulted in spouses spending more time together, sharing common worries and goals; there were less spheres of life, where the other spouse had little or no connection with

Of course it’s probably one of the many aspects of contemporary lifestyle that makes it harder for marriages, but still it’s an interesting one.

Obviously we can’t all run away from cities and establish homesteads. The author proposes interesting remedies, though:

• working in a smaller company, where you can often have more flexibility regarding your availability, thus being able to participate in family life more often
• establishing a family business
• working remotely from home, garden, or some other nearby place

Especially the last point resonates a lot with the values we have at Arkency. We even have a book about it, called “Async remote”, which describes the way we cope with remote work. It’s safe to say that: if remote work fosters family life, then async work multiplies the effect. In our minds it’s the async part that makes the remote work actually fun and beneficial. The book describes a lot of nice ideas how to implement it in your environment.