IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Remote Work, Wages, and Hours Worked in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Pabilonia, Sabrina Wulff

    (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

  • Vernon, Victoria

    (SUNY Empire State University)

Abstract

Remote wage employment gradually increased in the United States during the four decades prior to the pandemic, then surged in 2020 due to social distancing policies implemented to stem the spread of COVID-19. Using the 2010–2021 American Community Survey, the authors examine trends in wage and hours differentials for full-time remote workers and office-based workers as well as within occupation differences in wage growth by work location. Throughout the period, remote workers earned higher wages than those working on-site, and the difference increased sharply during the pandemic. Real wages grew 4.4 percent faster for remote workers within detailed occupation groups and remote work intensity was positively associated with wage growth across occupations. Before the pandemic, remote workers worked substantially longer hours per week than on-site workers, but by 2021, hours were similar.

Suggested Citation

  • Pabilonia, Sabrina Wulff & Vernon, Victoria, 2023. "Remote Work, Wages, and Hours Worked in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 16420, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    3. Haoran He & David Neumark & Qian Weng, 2021. "Do Workers Value Flexible Jobs? A Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(3), pages 709-738.
    4. Dustin R. White, 2019. "Agency Theory and Work from Home," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 33(1), pages 1-25, March.
    5. Luca Bonacini & Giovanni Gallo & Sergio Scicchitano, 2021. "Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’ with COVID-19," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 303-360, January.
    6. Arpit Gupta & Vrinda Mittal & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2022. "Work From Home and the Office Real Estate Apocalypse," NBER Working Papers 30526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. Carmen Aina & Irene Brunetti & Chiara Mussida & Sergio Scicchitano, 2023. "Distributional effects of COVID-19," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(1), pages 221-256, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Masayuki MORIKAWA, 2025. "Telework in Japan: An overview from micro data of a Large Statistical Survey," Discussion papers 25001, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    2. Benjamin Cowan, 2024. "Time use, college attainment, and the working-from-home revolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 1-27, September.

    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. Guillaume Gueguen & Claudia Senik, 2023. "Adopting telework: The causal impact of working from home on subjective well‐being," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 832-868, December.
    2. Erdsiek, Daniel & Rost, Vincent, 2023. "How do managers form their expectations about working from home? Survey experiments on the perception of productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    3. Benjamin Cowan, 2024. "Time use, college attainment, and the working-from-home revolution," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 1-27, September.
    4. Malik, Khyati & Kim, Sowon & Cultice, Brian J., 2023. "The impact of remote work on green space values in regional housing markets," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Bergeaud, Antonin & Eyméoud, Jean-Benoît & Garcia, Thomas & Henricot, Dorian, 2023. "Working from home and corporate real estate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    6. Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Hansen, Stephen & Lambert, Peter John & Sadun, Raffaella & Taska, Bledi, 2023. "Remote work across jobs, companies and space," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121302, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jose Maria Barrero & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2023. "Long Social Distancing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 129-172.
    8. Burdett, Ashley & Etheridge, Ben & Tang, Li & Wang, Yikai, 2024. "Worker productivity during Covid-19 and adaptation to working from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    9. repec:ags:aaea22:335486 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2023. "The remote work revolution: Impact on real estate values and the urban environment: 2023 AREUEA Presidential Address," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(1), pages 7-48, January.
    11. Van Landeghem, Bert & Dohmen, Thomas & Hole, Arne Risa & Künn-Nelen, Annemarie, 2024. "The value of commuting time, flexibility, and job security: Evidence from current and recent jobseekers in Flanders," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    12. Schulz, Rainer & Watson, Verity & Wersing, Martin, 2023. "Teleworking and housing demand," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    13. Steven Bond-Smith & Philip McCann, 2022. "The work-from-home revolution and the performance of cities," Working Papers 2022-6, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    14. Vij, Akshay & Souza, Flavio F. & Barrie, Helen & Anilan, V. & Sarmiento, Sergio & Washington, Lynette, 2023. "Employee preferences for working from home in Australia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 782-800.
    15. Lorenzo Aldeco Leo & Alejandrina Salcedo, 2024. "Remote Work and High Proximity Employment in Mexico," Working Papers 2024-17, Banco de México.
    16. Lee, Kangoh, 2023. "Working from home as an economic and social change: A review," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    17. Gokan,Toshitaka & Kichko,Sergei & Matheson,Jesse A & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2022. "How the rise of teleworking will reshape labor markets and cities?," IDE Discussion Papers 868, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    18. Cseres-Gergely, Zsombor & Kecht, Valentin & Le Blanc, Julia & Onorante, Luca, 2024. "The economic impact of general vs. targeted lockdowns: New insights from Italian municipalities," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    19. Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia & Victoria Vernon, 2022. "Telework, Wages, and Time Use in the United States," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 687-734, September.
    20. F. Cerina & L.G. Deidda & S. Nobili, 2025. "Skill-biased remote work and incentives," Working Paper CRENoS 202505, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    21. Lewandowski, Piotr & Lipowska, Katarzyna & Smoter, Mateusz, 2024. "Preference for working from home – subjective perceptions of COVID-19 matter more than objective information on occupational exposure to contagion," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 112(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wages; working from home; remote work; usual hours worked; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    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:iza:izadps:dp16420. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.