IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16618.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Commuting and Working from Home Arrangements on Mental Health

Author

Listed:
  • Botha, Ferdi

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Kabátek, Jan

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Meekes, Jordy

    (Leiden University)

  • Wilkins, Roger

    (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research)

Abstract

In this study, we quantify the causal effects of commuting time and working from home (WFH) arrangements on the mental health of Australian men and women. Leveraging rich panel-data models, we first show that adverse effects of commuting time manifest only among men. These are concentrated among individuals with pre-existing mental health issues, and they are modest in magnitude. Second, we show that WFH arrangements have large positive effects on women's mental health, provided that the WFH component is large enough. The effects are once again concentrated among individuals with pre-existing mental health issues. This effect specificity is novel and extends beyond Australia: we show that it also underlies the adverse effects of commuting time on the mental health of British women. Our findings highlight the importance of targeted interventions and support for individuals who are dealing with mental health problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Botha, Ferdi & Kabátek, Jan & Meekes, Jordy & Wilkins, Roger, 2023. "The Effects of Commuting and Working from Home Arrangements on Mental Health," IZA Discussion Papers 16618, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16618.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Bloom & James Liang & John Roberts & Zhichun Jenny Ying, 2015. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 165-218.
    2. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2017. "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3722-3759, December.
    3. Anderson, Michael L. & Lu, Fangwen & Zhang, Yiran & Yang, Jun & Qin, Ping, 2016. "Superstitions, street traffic, and subjective well-being," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 1-10.
    4. Jacob, Nikita & Munford, Luke & Rice, Nigel & Roberts, Jennifer, 2019. "The disutility of commuting? The effect of gender and local labor markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 264-275.
    5. Roberts, Jennifer & Hodgson, Robert & Dolan, Paul, 2011. "“It's driving her mad”: Gender differences in the effects of commuting on psychological health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1064-1076.
    6. Atkins, Rose & Turner, Alex James & Chandola, Tarani & Sutton, Matt, 2020. "Going beyond the mean in examining relationships of adolescent non-cognitive skills with health-related quality of life and biomarkers in later-life," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    7. Georg Gottholmseder & Klaus Nowotny & Gerald J. Pruckner & Engelbert Theurl, 2009. "Stress perception and commuting," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 559-576, May.
    8. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Kassenboehmer, Sonja C. & Sinning, Mathias G., 2016. "Locus of control and savings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 113-130.
    9. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2022. "Trends in commuting time of European workers: A cross-country analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 327-342.
    10. Sinha, Kompal & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M. & Sharma, Anurag, 2021. "Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    11. Jordy Meekes, 2022. "Agglomeration Economies and the Urban Wage Premium in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 25(1), pages 25-54.
    12. Ferdi Botha & John P. New & Sonja C. New & David C. Ribar & Nicolás Salamanca, 2021. "Implications of COVID-19 labour market shocks for inequality in financial wellbeing," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 655-689, April.
    13. Danusha Jayawardana & Nadezhda V. Baryshnikova & Terence C. Cheng, 2023. "The long shadow of child labour on adolescent mental health: a quantile approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 77-97, January.
    14. Bubonya, Melisa & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Ribar, David C., 2019. "The reciprocal relationship between depressive symptoms and employment status," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 96-106.
    15. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    16. Bijan J. Borah & Anirban Basu, 2013. "Highlighting Differences Between Conditional And Unconditional Quantile Regression Approaches Through An Application To Assess Medication Adherence," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(9), pages 1052-1070, September.
    17. Ben Clark & Kiron Chatterjee & Adam Martin & Adrian Davis, 2020. "How commuting affects subjective wellbeing," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 2777-2805, December.
    18. Schiele, Valentin & Schmitz, Hendrik, 2016. "Quantile treatment effects of job loss on health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 59-69.
    19. Fernando Rios-Avila, 2020. "Recentered influence functions (RIFs) in Stata: RIF regression and RIF decomposition," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 51-94, March.
    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. Amina Ika Micah, 2022. "Three essays on access to credit and financial shock in Nigeria," Economics PhD Theses 0422, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    2. José M. Casado-Díaz & Raquel Simón-Albert & Hipólito Simón, 2023. "Gender Differences in Commuting: New Evidence from Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 907-941, October.
    3. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Velilla, Jorge & Ortega, Raquel, 2022. "Revisiting excess commuting and self-employment: The case of Latin America," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1179, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Echeverría, Lucía & Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto, 2022. "Active Commuting and the Health of Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 15572, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Hirte, Georg & Laes, Renée & Gerike, Regine, 2023. "Working from self-driving cars," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    6. Gavoille, Nicolas & Hazans, Mihails, 2022. "Personality Traits, Remote Work and Productivity," IZA Discussion Papers 15486, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2024. "Commuting, Wages, and Household Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 17128, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M, 2020. "Ex ante inequality of opportunity in health, decomposition and distributional analysis of biomarkers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. Hirte, Georg & Laes, Renée, 2022. "Working from self-driving cars," CEPIE Working Papers 01/22, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    10. Palacios, Saúl, 2021. "Desplazamientos y autoempleo en Francia: diferencias por género [Commuting y self-employment in France: gender differences]," MPRA Paper 106555, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Gueguen, Guillaume & Senik, Claudia, 2022. "Adopting Telework. The causal impact of working from home on subjective well-being in 2020," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2201, CEPREMAP.
    12. Inga Laß & Thomas Skora & Heiko Rüger & Mark Wooden & Martin Bujard, 2024. "Does temporary employment increase length of commuting? Longitudinal evidence from Australia and Germany," Transportation, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1467-1491, August.
    13. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2023. "Pro-environment Attitudes and Worker Commuting Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 16279, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2020. "Commuting and self-employment in Western Europe," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    15. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Brent, Daniel A., 2018. "Traffic and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 96-116.
    16. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Sonja G. Schatz, 2014. "Re-employment Expectations and the Eye of Providence," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2014n11, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    17. Marta Fana & Santo Milasi & Joanna Napierala & Enrique Fernandez-Macias & Ignacio Gonzalez Vazquez, 2020. "Telework, work organisation and job quality during the COVID-19 crisis: a qualitative study," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020-11, Joint Research Centre.
    18. Jin, Eunae & Kim, Danya & Jin, Jangik, 2022. "Commuting time and perceived stress: Evidence from the intra- and inter-city commuting of young workers in Korea," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    19. Huong Thu Le & Ha Trong Nguyen, 2018. "The evolution of the gender test score gap through seventh grade: new insights from Australia using unconditional quantile regression and decomposition," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-42, December.
    20. Francis,David C. & Kubinec ,Robert, 2022. "Beyond Political Connections : A Measurement Model Approach to Estimating Firm-levelPolitical Influence in 41 Economies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10119, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mental health; commuting; working from home; unconditional quantile regression;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    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:dp16618. 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.