¶ 60 million fewer commuting hours per day: How Americans use time saved by working from home

[Link to article on VoxEU CEPR]]https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/60-million-fewer-commuting-hours-day-how-americans-use-time-saved-working-home)

¶ BibTeX

@article{barrero202060,
  title={60 million fewer commuting hours per day: How Americans use time saved by working from home},
  author={Barrero, Jose Maria and Bloom, Nicholas and Davis, Steven J},
  journal={University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper},
  number={2020-132},
  year={2020}
}

¶ Notes and Excerpts

These figures imply that working from home accounts for 52.3% of employment in the pandemic economy, similar to independent survey-based estimates in Bick et al. (2020) and Brynjolfsson et al. (2020). By way of comparison, American Time Use Survey data imply a 5.2% working-from-home rate among employed persons before the pandemic struck (Barrero et al. 2020).

our surveys ask:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while you have been working from home, how are you now spending the time you have saved by not commuting?
a) Working on your current or primary job
b) Working on a second or new secondary job
c) Childcare
d) Home improvement, chores, or shopping
e) Leisure indoors (e.g. reading, watching TV and movies)
f) Exercise or outdoor leisure

Extra time devoted to the respondent’s primary job absorbs 35% of the time savings. The next largest category is indoor leisure, including reading and watching TV or movies, which absorbs 18%. Childcare, outdoor leisure, and work on a second job together account for about 30%.

Those with a high school diploma or less schooling, devote 32% of their time saving to their primary job and nearly 15% to a second job, almost twice as much as other education groups.