Digitalisierung, soziale Klasse und Corona: Berufliche Ungleichheiten in der Organisation des pandemiebedingten Homeoffice

Contributing to the research on inequalities in the digitalization of work, this article focuses on remote work during the Corona pandemic. Using Daniel Oeschʼs class approach, it examines the influence of the occupational position on the organization of the digitally enabled home office during the Corona crisis. Logistic regressions show that class position not only determines access to the home office and the extent to which people work from home. Class position also has a strong influence on work design in terms of quality of the workplace at home, the governance of remote work and its integration into the firm’s systems. On the one hand, lower classes are multiply underprivileged: Workers in skilled and unskilled jobs are significantly less likely to have the opportunity to work from home during the pandemic, and when they do have the opportunity, they spend less time in home office. In addition, they suffer more often from deficits in work design including incomplete technological equipment, lack of ergonomics, low autonomy, distrust by supervisors and integration deficits. On the other hand, technical experts, academic jobs with technical background, enjoy the most comfortable situation. They have higher odds of ending up in home office during the pandemic, spending larger shares of time there, and working under appropriate conditions. Empirically, the paper is based on qualitative interviews (n = 35) and a survey in which more than 10,000 employees participated in spring 2021 and 2022.