The global pandemic has led to an unprecedented shift to remote work that will likely persist to some degree into the future. Telecommuting’s impact on flexibility and work family conflict is a critical question for researchers and policy-makers. Our study addresses this question with data collected before and during the COVID-19 crisis: the 2003-2018 American Time Use Survey (ATUS, N = 19,179) and the April and May 2020 COVID Impact Survey (N = 784). Comparing mothers and fathers who work exclusively at the workplace, exclusively from home, and part-day from home, we describe differences in time spent on housework, childcare, and leisure; the nature of time worked at home; and the subjective experiences of telecommuting. In addition to a broad descriptive portrait, we take advantage of a quasi-experimental design in the ATUS leave supplements to examine time working at home among those who report ever telecommuting, providing estimates of telecommuting’s effect on other uses of time that better approximate causal relationships than prior studies. We find that gender gaps in housework are larger for telecommuters, and, among telecommuters, larger on telecommuting days. Conversely, telecommuting may shrink the gender gap in childcare, particularly among couples with two full time earners, although childcare more frequently impinges upon mothers’ work time. Survey data collected following the March COVID19 stay-at-home orders show that telecommuting mothers more frequently report feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression than telecommuting fathers. Early estimates of responses to the COVID19 pandemic offer insights into future implications of telecommuting for gender equality at work.

Objective This study examines the relationship between telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents' time use at home and on the job before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background Telecommuting is a potential strategy for addressing the competing demands of work and home and the gendered ways in which they play out. Limited evidence is mixed, however, on the implications of telecommuting for mothers' and fathers' time in paid and unpaid work. The massive increase in telecommuting due to COVID‐19 underscores the critical need to address this gap in the literature. Method Data from the 2003–2018 American Time Use Survey (N = 12,519) and the 2020 Current Population Survey (N = 83,676) were used to estimate the relationship between telecommuting and gender gaps in parents' time in paid and unpaid work before and during the pandemic. Matching and quasi‐experimental methods better approximate causal relationships than prior studies. Results Before the pandemic, telecommuting was associated with larger gender gaps in housework and work disruptions but smaller gender gaps in childcare, particularly among couples with two full‐time earners. During the pandemic, telecommuting mothers maintained paid work to a greater extent than mothers working on‐site, whereas fathers' work hours did not differ by work location. Conclusion In the context of weak institutional support for parenting, telecommuting may offer mothers a mechanism for maintaining work hours and reducing gender gaps in childcare, while exacerbating inequalities in housework and disruptions to paid work.

The global pandemic has led to an unprecedented shift to remote work that will likely persist to some degree into the future. Telecommuting's impact on flexibility and work family conflict is a critical question for researchers and policy-makers. Our study addresses this question with data collected before and during the COVID-19 crisis: the 2003-2018 American Time Use Survey (ATUS, N = 19,179) and the April and May 2020 COVID Impact Survey (N = 784). Comparing mothers and fathers who work exclusively at the workplace, exclusively from home, and part-day from home, we describe differences in time spent on housework, childcare, and leisure; the nature of time worked at home; and the subjective experiences of telecommuting. In addition to a broad descriptive portrait, we take advantage of a quasi-experimental design in the ATUS leave supplements to examine time working at home among those who report ever telecommuting, providing estimates of telecommuting's effect on other uses of time that better approximate causal relationships than prior studies. We find that gender gaps in housework are larger for telecommuters, and, among telecommuters, larger on telecommuting days. Conversely, telecommuting may shrink the gender gap in childcare, particularly among couples with two full time earners, although childcare more frequently impinges upon mothers' work time. Survey data collected following the March COVID19 stay-at-home orders show that telecommuting mothers more frequently report feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression than telecommuting fathers. Early estimates of responses to the COVID19 pandemic offer insights into future implications of telecommuting for gender equality at work.

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IMPORTANCE Neighborhood disadvantage is a novel social determinant of health that could adversely affect the functional well-being of older persons. Deficiencies in resource-poor environments can potentially be addressed through social and public health interventions. OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether estimates of active and disabled life expectancy differ on the basis of neighborhood disadvantage after accounting for individual-level socioeconomic characteristics and other prognostic factors. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This prospective longitudinal cohort study included 754 nondisabled community-living persons, aged 70 years or older, who were members of the Precipitating Events Project in south central Connecticut from March 1998 to June 2020.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Disability in 4 essential activities of daily living (bathing, dressing, walking, and transferring) was assessed each month. Scores on the Area Deprivation Index, a census-based socioeconomic measure with 17 education, employment, housing quality, and poverty indicators, were obtained through linkages with the 2000 Neighborhood Atlas. Area Deprivation Index scores were dichotomized at the 80th state percentile to distinguish neighborhoods that were disadvantaged (81-100) from those that were not (1-80). RESULTS Among the 754 participants, the mean (SD) age was 78.4 (5.3) years, and 487 (64.6%) were female. Within 5-year age increments from 70 to 90, active life expectancy was consistently lower in participants from neighborhoods that were disadvantaged vs not disadvantaged, and these differences persisted and remained statistically significant after adjustment for individual-level race and ethnicity, education, income, and other prognostic factors. At age 70 years, adjusted estimates (95% CI) for active life expectancy (in years) were 12.3 (11.5-13.1) in the disadvantaged group and 14.2 (13.5-14.7) in the nondisadvantaged group. At each age, participants from disadvantaged neighborhoods spent a greater percentage of their projected remaining life disabled, relative to those from nondisadvantaged neighborhoods, with adjusted values (SE) ranging from 17.7 (0.8) vs 15.3 (0.5) at age 70 years to 55.0 (1.7) vs 48.1 (1.3) at age 90 years. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEIn this prospective longitudinal cohort study, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood was associated with lower active life expectancy and a greater percentage of projected remaining life with disability. By addressing deficiencies in resource-poor environments, new or expanded social and public health initiatives have the potential to improve the functional well-being of community-living older persons and, in turn, reduce health disparities in the US.