Exploring Work–Life Integration Challenges for Women in the IT Sector during the Remote Work Transition

The abrupt transition to remote and hybrid work has fundamentally changed the boundaries of work-life in highly tech-based sectors such as Information Technology (IT). While remote work is marketed to be a flexible and empowering solution for women, the recent research indicates that there are complex and gendered impacts of remote work on women professionals. The review examines the latest literature (2023-2025) to understand the question of work-life integration of women in the IT sector in the transition to remote work. Based on the theoretical frameworks such as the Boundary Theory, the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, the review identifies five emerging trends, including the flexibility-intensification paradox, the persistence of a gendered division of unpaid work, the blurring of boundaries and technostress, the well-being-performance paradox, and the failure of gender-neutral remote work policies. The findings suggest that remote work does not necessarily reduce work-life conflict; rather, in the absence of policies to reduce it at an institutional level in terms of workload management, right-to-disconnect norms, and gender-biased HR policies, remote work has the potential to reinforce structural inequalities. The review expands the argument that work-life "mix" for women in IT is not an individual coping strategy but an organisational and a socio-cultural issue. This paper synthesises disjointed empirical evidence to propose the need for structural rethinking of remote work design in sustainable, gender-sensitive integration practices in digital workplaces.