Working from home, hours worked and wages: Heterogeneity by gender and parenthood

Melanie Arntz, Sarra Ben Yahmed, Francesco Berlingieri

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Working from home (WfH) has been widely adopted since the Covid-19 pandemic. Pre-pandemic evidence on how hybrid work arrangements relate to labour market outcomes is a scarce and valuable benchmark. We exploit the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1997 and 2014 to investigate how such a work arrangement relates to working hours, wages and job satisfaction for different demographic groups. We find that childless employees work an extra hour of unpaid overtime per week and report higher job satisfaction after taking up WfH. Among parents, gender differences in working hours and monthly earnings are lower after WfH take-up. However, hourly wage increases with WfH take-up are limited to fathers, unless mothers change employers. We discuss the role of career changes, commuting and working-time flexibility in explaining these findings.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102169
JournalLabour Economics
Volume76
Early online date30 Apr 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2022

Keywords

  • Flexible work arrangements
  • Gender
  • Wages
  • Working from home
  • Working hours

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