IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v113y2023p556-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of COVID-19 on Workers' Expectations and Preferences for Remote Work

Author

Listed:
  • Yuting Chen
  • Patricia Cortes
  • Gizem Kosar
  • Jessica Pan
  • Basit Zafar

Abstract

We study how COVID-19 affected the prevalence, expectations, and attitudes toward remote work using specially designed surveys. The incidence of remote work remains higher than prepandemic levels, and both men and women expect this to persist postpandemic. Workers also report increased preference for remote work as a result of the pandemic. These changes are strongly correlated with individuals' exposure to the pandemic-induced work-from-home shock, indicating that experience with remote work during the pandemic likely shaped expectations and preferences toward WFH. The magnitude of the effects on preferences and expectations are similar across gender, marital status, and presence of children.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuting Chen & Patricia Cortes & Gizem Kosar & Jessica Pan & Basit Zafar, 2023. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Workers' Expectations and Preferences for Remote Work," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 556-561, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:113:y:2023:p:556-61
    DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20231090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20231090
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E189981V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20231090.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20231090.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pandp.20231090?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    2. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2022. "Working from Home Around the World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(2 (Fall)), pages 281-360.
    3. Matthew Wiswall & Basit Zafar, 2018. "Preference for the Workplace, Investment in Human Capital, and Gender," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 457-507.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Afridi, Farzana & Basistha, Ahana & Dhillon, Amrita & Serra, Danila, 2023. "Can Crises Affect Citizen Activism? Evidence from a Pandemic," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 693, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Benjamin Cowan, 2024. "Time use, college attainment, and the working-from-home revolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 1-27, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vij, Akshay & Souza, Flavio F. & Barrie, Helen & Anilan, V. & Sarmiento, Sergio & Washington, Lynette, 2023. "Employee preferences for working from home in Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 782-800.
    2. Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Hansen, Stephen & Lambert, Peter John & Sadun, Raffaella & Taska, Bledi, 2023. "Remote work across jobs, companies and space," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121302, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Schulz, Rainer & Watson, Verity & Wersing, Martin, 2023. "Teleworking and housing demand," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    5. Bergeaud, Antonin & Eyméoud, Jean-Benoît & Garcia, Thomas & Henricot, Dorian, 2023. "Working from home and corporate real estate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    6. Behrens, Kristian & Kichko, Sergei & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2024. "Working from home: Too much of a good thing?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    7. Giovanni Peri & Reem Zaiour, 2023. "Changes in international immigration and internal native mobility after COVID-19 in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2389-2428, October.
    8. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2023. "The value of sick pay," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. Leth-Petersen, Søren & Lee, Minjoon & Caplin, Andrew & Shapiro, Matthew D. & Sæverud, Johan, 2022. "How Worker Productivity and Wages Grow with Tenure and Experience: The Firm Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 17545, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Benjamin Cowan, 2024. "Time use, college attainment, and the working-from-home revolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 1-27, September.
    11. Michele Mariani & Livia Ristuccia & Pasqualino Montanaro, 2023. "Propensity to work remotely in the Bank of Italy: a behavioural analysis," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 753, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2023. "Long Social Distancing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 129-172.
    13. Jesse Matheson & Brendon McConnell & James Rockey & Argyris Sakalis, 2023. "Do Remote Workers Deter Neighborhood Crime? Evidence from the Rise of Working from Home," Working Papers 2023020, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    14. Battisti, Enrico & Alfiero, Simona & Leonidou, Erasmia, 2022. "Remote working and digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Economic–financial impacts and psychological drivers for employees," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 38-50.
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Ruobing Han & James Liang, 2022. "How hybrid working from home works out," POID Working Papers 059, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Malak Kandoussi, 2023. "A New Norm? Exploring the Shift to Working From Home in the Post-Pandemic Labor Market," Documents de recherche 23-09, Centre d'Études des Politiques Économiques (EPEE), Université d'Evry Val d'Essonne.
    17. Duanyi Yang & Erin L. Kelly & Laura D. Kubzansky & Lisa Berkman, 2023. "Working from Home and Worker Well-being: New Evidence from Germany," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 504-531, May.
    18. repec:ags:aaea22:335486 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Guillaume Gueguen & Claudia Senik, 2023. "Adopting telework: The causal impact of working from home on subjective well‐being," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 832-868, December.
    20. Esposito, Piero & Mendolia, Silvia & Scicchitano, Sergio & Tealdi, Cristina, 2024. "Working from Home and Job Satisfaction: The Role of Gender and Personality Traits," IZA Discussion Papers 16751, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Jean-Victor Alipour & Oliver Falck & Simon Krause & Carla Krolage & Sebastian Wichert, 2022. "The Future of Work and Consumption in Cities after the Pandemic: Evidence from Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 10000, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:113:y:2023:p:556-61. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.