IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0340452.html

Is working from home changing the meaning of work?

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Bähr
  • Bernad Batinic
  • Matthias Collischon

Abstract

Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home (WFH) has become a common practice in the workplace. This raises the question of whether WFH changes the non-monetary benefits of work, such as job quality or social contacts. Thus, in this article, we investigate how working from home affects Jahoda’s latent functions of employment as well as job quality measures. To this end, we use panel data from the German Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security (PASS) and estimate the effects of changing work patterns on the aforementioned outcomes. Our findings reveal basically no effects of WFH on job quality measures and latent benefits. This, in contrast to anecdotal evidence, implies that WFH does not harm psychological well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Bähr & Bernad Batinic & Matthias Collischon, 2026. "Is working from home changing the meaning of work?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 21(1), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0340452
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0340452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0340452
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0340452&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0340452?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
    ---><---

    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. repec:osf:socarx:wfdbe_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ro’i Zultan & Eldar Dadon, 2023. "Missing the forest for the trees: when monitoring quantitative measures distorts task prioritization," Working Papers 2319, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    2. Petra Nieken & Sven Walther, 2024. "Honesty in Virtual Communication," CESifo Working Paper Series 11094, CESifo.
    3. Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian & Kecht, Valentin & Lehmann, Robert, 2022. "The diffusion of technological progress in ICT," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    4. 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).
    5. Martha J. Bailey & Janet Currie & Hannes Schwandt, 2022. "The Covid-19 Baby Bump: The Unexpected Increase in U.S. Fertility Rates in Response to the Pandemic," Working Papers 2022-30, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    6. Norlander, Peter & Erickson, Christopher, 2022. "The Role of Institutions in Job Teleworkability Before and After the Covid-19 Pandemic," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1172, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Masayuki Morikawa, 2023. "Productivity dynamics of remote work during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 317-331, July.
    8. Melenciuc Mihaela, 2025. "Hybrid Models in Teleworking and Online Education: Exploring Theoretical Perspectives and Digital Divide. A Systematic Literature Review and a Bibliometric Analysis," Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, Sciendo, vol. 19(1), pages 4684-4697.
    9. Arntz, Melanie & Böhm, Michael & Graetz, Georg & Gregory, Terry & Lehmer, Florian & Lipowski, Cäcilia, 2024. "Firm-level technology adoption in times of crisis," ZEW Discussion Papers 24-057, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Duede, Eamon & Teplitskiy, Misha & Lakhani, Karim & Evans, James, 2024. "Being together in place as a catalyst for scientific advance," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(2).
    11. Blanas, Sotiris & Oikonomou, Rigas, 2023. "COVID-induced economic uncertainty, tasks and occupational demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    12. Janice Eberly & John G. Fernald, 2022. "Jackson Hole 2022 - Reassessing Economic Constraints: Potential Output (The Impact of COVID on Productivity and Potential Output)," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, August.
    13. Thomaz Teodorovicz & Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury & Evan Starr, 2025. "Location-Specificity and Relocation Incentive Programs for Remote Workers," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(1), pages 186-212, January.
    14. Christos A. Makridis, 2025. "The Allocation of Time and Remote Work," CESifo Working Paper Series 12363, CESifo.
    15. Nicholas Bloom & Gordon B. Dahl & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2024. "Work from Home and Disability Employment," NBER Working Papers 32943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Yanotti, Maria B. & Kangogo, Moses & Wright, Danika & Sarkar, Somwrita & Lyu, Fei, 2024. "House price dynamics and internal migration across Australia," SocArXiv r5eg2, Center for Open Science.
    17. Julia Darby & Stuart McIntyre & Graeme Roy, 2022. "What can analysis of 47 million job advertisements tell us about how opportunities for homeworking are evolving in the United Kingdom?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 281-302, July.
    18. Daniel P. Gross & Bhaven N. Sampat, 2022. "Crisis Innovation Policy from World War II to COVID-19," Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 135-181.
    19. Christian Kagerl & Julia Starzetz, 2023. "Working from home for good? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and what this means for the future of work," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 229-265, January.
    20. 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).

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0340452. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.