Who can work from home in MENA?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the world economy. The need for social distancing, lockdowns, or complete curfews has meant that this impact varied significantly across segments of society. Those unable to work remotely, or who work in settings necessitating close contact with others faced a trade-off between their lives and livelihoods. This trade-off was especially pronounced early on during the pandemic when vaccines had not yet been developed, hospitals were overwhelmed and governments were resorting to strict social distancing measures to mitigate the impact on their already strained healthcare systems. In this study, I examine the extent to which jobs can be successfully performed remotely in five MENA countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia. I develop a teleworkability index using micro data on occupational characteristics. I find that relatively few jobs in MENA countries are compatible with teleworking and this share varies considerably by industry, gender, age and the formality of employment. I further investigate the ability to work from home in practice by considering the digital divide (a lack of reliable access to vital tools for teleworking, such as a personal computer and reliable internet access) as well as actual work from home behavior during the pandemic using real time surveys. I find that even for those who have high telework potential only few have access to computer and internet. Surveys conducted during the pandemic suggest that our measure of teleworkability was quite close to actual work from home behavior in each country.