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Working from home during the corona-crisis is associated with higher subjective well-being for women with long (pre-corona) commutes

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  • Kroesen, Maarten

Abstract

Much research has been devoted to assessing the effect of commute duration on the subjective well-being of people, but as of yet, the respective body or research has been inconclusive as to whether there is indeed a (large) negative effect or not. To control the spread of COVID-19 governments around the world have taken unprecedented measures to control the outbreak of the Corona-virus. Forcing or strongly advising people to work from home (i.e. at least those who can) is often one of these. The ensuing situation can be considered a natural experiment; the government’s intervention effectively cancels people’s commuting trip and can be considered completely exogenous. Should commuting time indeed have an adverse effect on well-being, it may be expected that those workers with long (pre-corona) commutes who have transitioned to working from home will experience an increase in their well-being. This idea is tested by combining several surveys -timed before and after the crisis- from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences (LISS) panel, a panel that is representative of the Dutch population. In line with expectations, the results indicate that workers with a long commuting duration who transitioned to working from home indeed increased their subjective well-being. However, this effect was found to be significant only for women and not for men. A more general finding of interest is that subjective well-being did not change much between the measurements before and during the corona-crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Kroesen, Maarten, 2022. "Working from home during the corona-crisis is associated with higher subjective well-being for women with long (pre-corona) commutes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:156:y:2022:i:c:p:14-23
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2021.10.025
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Martijn J. Burger & Ruut Veenhoven, 2023. "Editorial: Special Issue on Subjective Well-being and Mental Health in the Early Days of COVID-19," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 1-8, February.
    3. Tao, Yinhua & Petrović, Ana & van Ham, Maarten, 2023. "Working from home and subjective wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of pre-COVID-19 commuting distance and mode choices," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Joseph Crawford, 2022. "Working from Home, Telework, and Psychological Wellbeing? A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, September.

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