Work from Home and Disability Employment

There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment in the US since the pandemic, a pattern mirrored in other countries as well. A similar increase is not found for any other major gender, race, age or education demographic. At the same time, work from home has risen four-fold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Analyzing CPS and ACS microdata, we find the increase in disability employment is concentrated in occupations with high levels of working from home. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in work from home increases full-time employment by 1.1% for individuals with a physical disability. A back of the envelope calculation reveals that the post pandemic increase in working from home explains 80% of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggests that WFH increased the supply of workers with a disability, likely by reducing commuting costs and enabling better control of working conditions.