Moving to the suburbs? Exploring the potential impact of work-from-home on suburbanization in Poland

The main goal of this paper is to assess the likelihood of office workers relocating to the suburbs due to work-from-home opportunities and the key factors influencing these preferences. Our study focuses on Poland, a country with different cultural individualism at work, which can impact work-from-home preferences and, indirectly, home relocation desires. Given the methodological limitations of official data on remote work practices in Poland, we conducted an original survey, gathering primary data from a nationally representative sample of office workers living in cities with populations exceeding 100,000. To investigate the factors shaping employees' preferences for suburban relocation driven by remote work, we utilized logistic regression to analyze the effects of socio-economic and employment characteristics, commuting experiences, and reported changes in work productivity. Our findings reveal that age, mode of commuting, perceived changes in work productivity, and sector ownership are significant determinants, strongly affecting home relocation preferences in response to work-from-home opportunities. These results align with previous research, typically based on data from countries with different cultural frameworks and more developed work-from-home practices.