Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP14901
Authors: Abigail Adams; Teodora Boneva; Christopher Rauh; Marta Golin
Abstract: Using large, geographically representative surveys from the US and UK, we document variation in the percentage of tasks workers can do from home. We highlight three dimensions of heterogeneity that have previously been neglected. First, the share of tasks that can be done from home varies considerably both across as well as within occupations and industries. The distribution of the share of tasks that can be done from home within occupations, industries, and occupation-industry pairs is systematic and remarkably consistent across countries and survey waves. Second, as the pandemic has progressed, the share of workers who can do all tasks from home has increased most in those occupations in which the pre-existing share was already high. Third, even within occupations and industries, we find that women can do fewer tasks from home. Using machine-learning methods, we extend our working-from-home measure to all disaggregated occupation-industry pairs. The measure we present in this paper is a critical input for models considering the possibility to work from home, including models used to assess the impact of the pandemic or design policies targeted at reopening the economy.
Keywords: working from home; occupations; industry; coronavirus; covid19; telework
JEL Codes: J21; J24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| individual characteristics such as gender and education (I24) | ability to work from home (J22) |
| ability to work from home (J22) | job loss due to the pandemic (J65) |
| gender (J16) | ability to work from home (J22) |
| occupation and industry (L79) | ability to work from home (J22) |
| occupation and industry (L79) | job loss due to the pandemic (J65) |
| pandemic progression (F44) | share of workers able to perform all tasks from home (J22) |