IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9932.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Working from Home in European Countries before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Vahagn Jerbashian
  • Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí

Abstract

We use data from the EU Labour Force Survey for 8 countries and document the levels of working from home in the sample countries, industries, and occupations in the 2011-2019 period and its changes in 2020, the year when the COVID-19 pandemic started. We show that there are significant differences in working from home across countries, industries, and occupations and that working from home has increased almost everywhere in the 2011-2019 period and more significantly in 2020. Countries that had the lowest levels of working from home in 2019 enacted the most stringent stay-home and workplace closure policies and experienced the largest growth rates in working from home in 2020. Finally, we compute a measure of working from home capacity for the sample countries using the observed working from home levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Vahagn Jerbashian & Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí, 2022. "Working from Home in European Countries before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 9932, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9932.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    2. Thomas Hale & Noam Angrist & Rafael Goldszmidt & Beatriz Kira & Anna Petherick & Toby Phillips & Samuel Webster & Emily Cameron-Blake & Laura Hallas & Saptarshi Majumdar & Helen Tatlow, 2021. "A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker)," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(4), pages 529-538, April.
    3. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Work that can be done from home: evidence on variation within and across occupations and industries," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    5. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    6. Santos, Cezar & Brotherhood, Luiz & Kircher, Philipp & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 14695, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 2019. "The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 72(2), pages 382-416, March.
    8. Jerbashian, Vahagn & Vilalta-Bufi, Montserrat, 2020. "The Impact of ICT on Working from Home: Evidence from EU Countries," GLO Discussion Paper Series 719, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. 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.
    10. Michael Kremer, 1996. "Integrating Behavioral Choice into Epidemiological Models of AIDS," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 549-573.
    11. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    12. Vahagn Jerbashian, 2019. "Automation and Job Polarization: On the Decline of Middling Occupations in Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(5), pages 1095-1116, October.
    13. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2020. "Alternative Work Arrangements," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 631-658, August.
    14. Brotherhood, Luiz & Kircher, Philipp & Santos, Cezar & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 14695, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Harald Fadinger & Jan Schymik, 2020. "The Effects of Working From Home on COVID-19 Infections and Production - A Macroeconomic Analysis for Germany," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_167, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    16. Michael Kremer, 1996. "Integrating Behavioral Choice into Epidemiological Models of the AIDS Epidemic," NBER Working Papers 5428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Gerald S. Oettinger, 2011. "The Incidence and Wage Consequences of Home-Based Work in the United States, 1980–2000," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(2), pages 237-260.
    18. Brotherhood, Luiz & Kircher, Philipp & Santos, Cezar & Tertilt, Michèle, 2020. "An economic model of the Covid-19 epidemic: The importance of testing and age-specific policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 14695, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vahagn Jerbashian & Montserrat Vilalta-Bufí, 2022. "Working from home, pandemic, occupations, industries," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2022/427, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Gottlieb Charles & Grobovšek Jan & Poschke Markus & Saltiel Fernando, 2022. "Lockdown Accounting," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 197-210, January.
    3. Teresa Barbieri & Gaetano Basso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "Italian Workers at Risk During the COVID-19 Epidemic," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 8(1), pages 175-195, March.
    4. Masayuki Morikawa, 2022. "Work‐from‐home productivity during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 508-527, April.
    5. Bradley, Jake & Ruggieri, Alessandro & Spencer, Adam Hal, 2021. "Twin Peaks: Covid-19 and the labor market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    6. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Falck, Oliver & Schüller, Simone, 2023. "Germany’s capacity to work from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. David E. Bloom & Michael Kuhn & Klaus Prettner, 2022. "Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 85-131, March.
    8. Bamieh, Omar & Ziegler, Lennart, 2022. "Are remote work options the new standard? Evidence from vacancy postings during the COVID-19 crisis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    9. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Gómez-Herrera, Estrella, 2022. "Mobility restrictions and the substitution between on-site and remote work: Empirical evidence from a European online labour market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    10. Brotherhood, Luiz & Cavalcanti, Tiago & Da Mata, Daniel & Santos, Cezar, 2022. "Slums and pandemics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    11. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    12. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Fadinger, Harald & Schymik, Jan, 2021. "My home is my castle – The benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    13. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    14. Timo Boppart & Karl Harmenberg & John Hassler & Per Krusell & Jonna Olsson, 2020. "Integrated Epi-Econ Assessment," NBER Working Papers 28282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Farboodi, Maryam & Jarosch, Gregor & Shimer, Robert, 2021. "Internal and external effects of social distancing in a pandemic," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    16. Sangmin Aum & Sang Yoon (Tim) Lee & Yongseok Shin, 2022. "Who Should Work from Home During a Pandemic? The Wage-Infection Trade-off," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 104(2), pages 92-109.
    17. Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Aidan Caplan & Tristan Caplan, 2024. "Measuring Trends in Work From Home: Evidence from Six U.S. Datasets," Working Papers 2024-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    18. Brotherhood, Luiz & Jerbashian, Vahagn, 2023. "Firm behavior during an epidemic," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    19. Arntz, Melanie & Ben Yahmed, Sarra & Berlingieri, Francesco, 2022. "Working from home, hours worked and wages: Heterogeneity by gender and parenthood," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    20. Joshua S. Gans, 2020. "The Economic Consequences of R̂ = 1: Towards a Workable Behavioural Epidemiological Model of Pandemics," NBER Working Papers 27632, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    working from home; pandemic; occupations; industries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.