Women's presence in the workplace has been increasing steadily; by Spring 1996 they represented over 43 percent of the total labour force, and 44 percent of those in employment. It is still the case, however, that, while the vast majority of men in employment have full time jobs, a total of 44 percent of women in employment are working part time. Also, the earnings of women still lag behind those of men, with average hourly earnings of full time female employees standing at 80 percent of male earnings.

The rise in numbers of working women has taken place in parallel with an increase in the proportion of mothers of children under 16 who have jobs. The percentage of women whose youngest child is under 5 who are working full time almost doubled between 1986 and 1996, from just under 9 percent to nearly 17 percent.

There has also been an increase in the proportion of working mothers who use professional childcare, from 20 percent of all working mothers in 1991, to 23 percent in 1994. The cost of childcare to working parents is increasing, with average weekly spending on childcare for those with children under five having risen from £36.60 to £51.51 per family between 1991 and 1994.

The number of working mothers has been increasing across the European Community (EC). In 1993, averaged across the EU12, half of all women with a child under ten were in employment; there were substantial national variations, ranging from Ireland and Spain, with employment rates below 40 percent, to Belgium, Denmark and Portugal, where they were over 60 percent.

According to estimates from the Labour Force Survey, just under 7 percent of all employees are currently on temporary contracts. Research by the Institute of Employment Studies revealed that establishments employing temporary workers were most likely to use them for clerical and secretarial functions, with technical and computing occupations in second place. Some 17 percent of the establishments surveyed employed managerial and professional staff on temporary contracts.

There is still no single accepted definition of telework, or of the many terms associated with it; the confusion arising from this may have led to difficulty in estimating the numbers of people engaged in teleworking, and its relative importance to the world of work.

The common linking element is the changing geography of work, including the relocation of some office functions to rural areas where overheads and labour costs may be cheaper, as well as the relocation of an individual worker's tasks to his or her home.

In addition, the growing internationalisation of the service sector means that companies are relocating work across national boundaries, sometimes to the other side of the world, for example from the developed to the developing world; the rationale for this is usually economic.

The driving force behind the widespread adoption of telework has been the reducing cost and increasing performance of computers and telecommunications. Economic considerations have also been important: the growth in telework began in the late 1980s, when office rents were high, and office space at a premium. The environmental advantages can also be considerable, with the substitution of telecommunications for transport an attractive proposition.

MAPS has estimated the number of companies in the UK using some form of home working arrangements to be around 162,000.

According to a recent report by the Rural Development Commission (RDC), different types of teleworking in England are becoming concentrated in different types of area, reflecting an emerging economic geography.

Back-office functions are clustered in traditional industrial urban areas outside London, where overheads are lower; the greatest concentration of skilled professional, technical and managerial workers is in prosperous areas of south central England, within easy reach of motorways, while low-paid, full home-based teleworkers are found mainly in peripheral rural areas.

A development which is linked with, and has grown at the same time as, teleworking, is the virtual office - sometimes referred to as 'hot-desking'. In the virtual office no employee is allocated a permanent office, but desks and computers are booked as and when they are needed, with employees working out of the office, using portable equipment either in their own homes, or 'on the road', at other times.

Original research commissioned by MAPS for this report revealed that one in four working adults say they now work from home at least some of the time, and a further one in four do not work at home at all at present, but would like the opportunity to do so.

A study published in 1997 by the RDC found that, although rural areas of England are relatively well supplied with basic telecommunications, there may be problems in future because of patchy access to more advanced telecommunications networks, such as ISDN and cable.

The small office, home office (SOHO) market is increasingly important in the office equipment industry, accounting for around 25 percent of the total output of the office equipment sector in the UK in 1993, or about 34 percent of the UK office equipment market.

The growth of teleworking in all its forms means that many workers are having to reassess their domestic environment as a place where they can both live and work. Some new housing developments are taking this into account, providing homes with fibre-optic links to corporate workspaces for local employers. More conventional solutions for the home worker may include creating a dedicated office space within the home, or using flexible home-office furniture to make a dual purpose room.

The changing economic structure of the country means that traditional health and safety problems, such as work-related injuries, are being replaced by new ones, notably stress.

The research commissioned for this report revealed that 56 percent of working adults feel that their working lives are more stressful now than they were five years ago. Male workers, and those with full time jobs, are most likely to complain of this.

Despite the increase in stress, and other problems in the workplace today, more than half of all working adults say they would carry on working even if they did not need the money. It is the female workers, and those with part time jobs - in other words, those who are least likely to complain of workplace stress - who are most likely to say this.

One of the perceived disadvantages of teleworking is the fact that most teleworkers work alone, and miss out on the social relationships of the workplace. Among the respondents in the research commissioned by MAPS, nearly half said they often socialised with the people they worked with.

Teleworking is something of a grey area in relation to health and safety problems, and there is a great deal of confusion about the duties of employers to maintain a safe work environment, wherever that may be.

The Telework, Telecottage and Telecentre Association (TCA) advises employers to supply all furniture, ensure that it is inspected and checked on a regular basis, and provide training to reduce the risk of injuries such as RSI.