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60 Million Fewer Commuting Hours Per Day: How Americans Use Time Saved by Working from Home

Author

Listed:
  • Jose Maria Barrero

    (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México - Business School)

  • Nick Bloom

    (Stanford University - Department of Economics; NBER)

  • Steven J. Davis

    (University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; NBER; Hoover Institution)

Abstract

Drawing on original surveys of our own design, we estimate that the pandemic-induced shift to working from home lowers commuting time among Americans by more than 60 million hours per work day. Cumulative time savings over the past seven months exceed 9 billion hours. Our survey data also say that Americans devote about 35% of the time savings to their primary jobs and about 60% to work activities of all sorts, including household chores and child care. The allocation of time savings is broadly similar for men and women and across groups defined by race and ethnicity, but it differs substantially by education group and between persons with and without children at home.

Suggested Citation

  • Jose Maria Barrero & Nick Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2020. "60 Million Fewer Commuting Hours Per Day: How Americans Use Time Saved by Working from Home," Working Papers 2020-132, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2020-132
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    File URL: https://repec.bfi.uchicago.edu/RePEc/pdfs/BFI_WP_2020132.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Karel Mertens, 2023. "Work from Home before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 1-39, October.
    2. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Erik Brynjolfsson & John J. Horton & Adam Ozimek & Daniel Rock & Garima Sharma & Hong-Yi TuYe, 2020. "COVID-19 and Remote Work: An Early Look at US Data," NBER Working Papers 27344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2020. "COVID-19 Is Also a Reallocation Shock," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(2 (Summer), pages 329-383.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2022. "Working from Home Around the World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 53(2 (Fall)), pages 281-360.
    2. Manuela Tomei, 2021. "Teleworking: A Curse or a Blessing for Gender Equality and Work-Life Balance?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(5), pages 260-264, September.
    3. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," Working Papers 2020-174, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    4. Steve Cicala, 2020. "Powering Work From Home," Working Papers 2020-147, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    5. Daniel Albalate & Xavier Fageda, 2022. ""Have Low Emission Zones slowed urban traffic recovery after Covid-19?"," IREA Working Papers 202222, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Dec 2022.
    6. Maria Barrero, Jose & Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J., 2021. "Internet access and its implications for productivity, inequality and resilience," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113869, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Cevat Giray Aksoy & Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Mathias Dolls & Pablo Zarate, 2023. "Time Savings When Working from Home," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 597-603, May.
    8. Michael Gibbs & Friederike Mengel & Christoph Siemroth, 2023. "Work from Home and Productivity: Evidence from Personnel and Analytics Data on Information Technology Professionals," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 7-41.
    9. Rafiq, Rezwana & McNally, Michael G. & Sarwar Uddin, Yusuf & Ahmed, Tanjeeb, 2022. "Impact of working from home on activity-travel behavior during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An aggregate structural analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 35-54.
    10. Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia & Victoria Vernon, 2023. "Who is doing the chores and childcare in dual-earner couples during the COVID-19 era of working from home?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 519-565, June.
    11. Hensher, David A. & Wei, Edward & Liu, Wen, 2023. "Accounting for the spatial incidence of working from home in an integrated transport and land model system," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    12. Ting Zhang & Dan Gerlowski & Zoltan Acs, 2022. "Working from home: small business performance and the COVID-19 pandemic," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 611-636, February.
    13. Brave, Scott A. & Butters, R. Andrew & Fogarty, Michael, 2022. "The perils of working with big data, and a SMALL checklist you can use to recognize them," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 481-492.
    14. Christopher T. Stanton & Pratyush Tiwari, 2021. "Housing Consumption and the Cost of Remote Work," NBER Working Papers 28483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Hasan Bakhshi & Salvatore Novo & Giorgio Fazio, 2023. "The “Great Lockdown” and cultural consumption in the UK," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 47(4), pages 555-587, December.
    16. Ilyar Heydari Barardehi & Anna Kurowska, 2024. "Were Parents Synchronizing Their Home-Based Working Arrangements During the COVID-19 Pandemic?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 569-588, July.
    17. Cicala, Steve, 2023. "JUE Insight: Powering work from home," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

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