Who on earth can work from home?
BibTeX
@article{garrote2021earth,
title={Who on earth can work from home?},
author={Garrote Sanchez, Daniel and Gomez Parra, Nicolas and Ozden, Caglar and Rijkers, Bob and Viollaz, Mariana and Winkler, Hernan},
journal={The World Bank Research Observer},
volume={36},
number={1},
pages={67--100},
year={2021},
publisher={Oxford University Press}
}
Abstract
This paper reviews the emerging literature on which jobs can be performed from home and presents new estimates of the prevalence of such jobs based on the task content of occupations, their technology requirements and the availability of internet access by country and income groupings. Globally, one of every five jobs can be performed from home. In low-income countries, this ratio drops to one of every 26 jobs. Failing to account for internet access yields upward biased estimates of the resilience of poor countries, lagging regions, and poor workers. Since better paid workers are more likely to be able to work from home, COVID-19 is likely to exacerbate inequality, especially in richer countries where better paid and educated workers are insulated from the shock. The overall labor market burden of COVID-19 is bound to be larger in poor countries, where only a small share of workers can work from home and social protection systems are weaker. Across the globe, young, poorly educated workers and those on temporary contracts are least likely to be able to work from home and more vulnerable to the labor market shocks from COVID-19.
Notes and Excerpts
This paper is about globabl inequality effects from WFH. Basically saying that the dingel2020many overestimates the ability to WFH because in some other countries, internet access is more iffy.
Several different attempts at predicting whether a job can be done from home. Most notably tied to dingel2020many
Still, both papers’ measures of working-from-home amenability are positively correlated with those of DN2020 and both document that the ability to telework is higher in richer countries and among more educated and formal workers.
he possibility of working remotely does not always translate into efficiently working from home. Bloom et al. (2014) provided the first causal evidence on the impact of working from home on workers’ productivity in a randomized control trial of workers of the Chinese company Ctrip. Workers who worked from home experienced a 13 percent increase in performance due to longer effective working hours and more efficiency given the quieter work environment. However, the current setting during the COVID pandemic is different, where several family members might need to work from home alongside children (Bloom 2020a). In a recent survey, Barreo et al, (2020) highlights the importance of having a private space to work at home, as was the case for all the workers in the Bloom et al. (2014) study. However, less than half of respondents in the United States currently report being able to work privately in a room other than their bedroom, which can negatively affect workers’ productivity
Another important precondition for being able to work from home is internet access. Barreo et al. (2020) shows that in the United States, only two-thirds of respondents had an internet connection that was strong enough to sustain video calls while the other third had poor or no internet connectivity that hindered their ability to work from home