Socio-economic Factors and Telework Status in the US during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jiao, Junfeng; Azimian, Amin

doi:10.32866/001c.23573

Cited by 9 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Similar results were reported in a Japanese study conducted by Niu et al (2021). Given that males are often employed in economic sectors, such as construction, where work cannot be done from home, Jiao and Azimian (2021) found that males were less likely to telework.…”

Section: Note(s)supporting

confidence: 88%

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The prevalence of telework under Covid-19 in Canada

Haider

Anwar

2022

ITP

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PurposeThis study investigates the determinants of teleworking before and during COVID-19 in Canada. It explores the extent of telework adoption across industrial sectors, as well as the long-term impacts of large-scale adoption of teleworking on urban travel demand and the dwindling demand for commercial real estate in downtowns.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from a survey of business establishments, this study employs data visualization techniques to illustrate how telework adoption evolved during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown. The study also estimates Logit models to explore the determinants of telework before and during the pandemic using a subsample from the Canadian labor force survey.FindingsThe study found that telework adoption reached a peak in March and April of 2020 when almost 40% of the workers in Canada were teleworking. Only 12% of employees reported teleworking before the pandemic. The adoption of teleworking was far more pronounced amongst firms that use information and communication technologies (ICTs) extensively. Teleworking appears to be far more frequent among university-educated (knowledge economy) workers.Practical implicationsKnowledge economy and highly educated workers, who switched to teleworking during the pandemic at higher rates than workers with less education, are more frequently employed in offices located in the urban core or downtowns. The drastic decline in commuting to the urban core via public transit and record low occupancy levels in downtown office towers suggests that, even if telework prevailed at levels much lower than those observed during March and April of 2020, landlords holding large portfolios of commercial real estate must prepare to cope with the lower demand for commercial real estate. This is especially significant when commercial leases come up for renewal in the next few years. In addition, governments struggling to address traffic congestion by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on transport and transit infrastructure might want to promote teleworking as a means of reducing travel demands and costly infrastructure expenditures.Social implicationsTeleworking has partially eroded the boundaries between work and home by enabling millions to continue being productive while working from home. However, teleworking would require new norms and rules to maintain a work-life balance. This change requires workers and employers to cooperate.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the extent of telework adoption during COVID-19 in Canada and the determinants of telework adoption, presenting both employee and firm-level perspectives using Canada-wide representative data.

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Section: Note(s)supporting

confidence: 88%

“…Similarly, a Japanese study found that worker's age was not a statistically significant differentiator for changes in work location (Niu et al, 2021). Yet, pandemic-driven teleworking research found that younger adults under the age of 35 were more likely to be involved in telework (Jiao and Azimian, 2021).…”

Section: Formulation Of Research Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 98%

The prevalence of telework under Covid-19 in Canada

Haider

Anwar

2022

ITP

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“…While the COVID-19 pandemic caused all types of travel to initially fall across many different travel modes, due to stay-at-home orders and other public health restrictions, the declines in travel were greater among higher-income people (Brough et al 2021 ) who were more likely than lower wage workers to work from home (Jiao and Azimian 2021 ). These steep drops in ridership were on top of more gradual patronage declines in the years leading up to the pandemic (Berrebi and Watkins 2020 ; Manville et al 2022 ).…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using data from another national survey, Jiao and Azimian ( 2021 ) analyzed responses to the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS) to compare travel behaviors in September and October of 2020 with the pre-pandemic era. Their results differed slightly from the findings from the two previously mentioned surveys.…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like the two other studies, certain factors associated with low SES, including lower incomes and education levels, decreased the likelihood that a traveler reduced their public transit trips, all else equal. However, other factors associated with low SES, including being non-white and reporting difficulty with expenses during the pandemic, increased the likelihood that a traveler reduced their public transit trips (Jiao and Azimian 2021 ).…”

Section: Previous Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pandemic transit: examining transit use changes and equity implications in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles

Paul¹,

Taylor²

2022

Transportation

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While the COVID-19 pandemic upended many aspects of life as we knew it, its effects on U.S. public transit were especially dramatic. Many former transit commuters began to work from home or switched to traveling via private vehicles. But for those who continued to work outside the home and could not drive—who were more likely low-income and Black or Hispanic—transit remained an important means of mobility. However, most transit agencies reduced service during the first year of the pandemic, reflecting reduced ridership demand, increasing costs, and uncertain budgets. To analyze the effects of the pandemic on transit systems and their users, we examine bus ridership changes by neighborhood in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles from 2019 to 2020. Combining aggregated stop-level boarding data, passenger surveys, and census data, we identify associations between shifting travel patterns and neighborhoods. We find that early in the pandemic, neighborhoods with more poor and non-white households lost proportionally fewer riders; however, this gap between high- and low-ridership-loss neighborhoods shrank as the pandemic wore on. We also model ridership change controlling for multiple factors. Ridership in Houston and LA generally outperformed Boston, with built environment and demographic factors accounting for some of the observed differences. Neighborhoods with high shares of Hispanic and African American residents retained more riders in the pandemic, while those with higher levels of auto access and with more workers able to work from home lost more riders, all else equal. We conclude that transit’s social service role elevated during the pandemic, and that serving travelers in disadvantaged neighborhoods will likely remain paramount emerging from it.

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WILL COVID-19 jump-start telecommuting? Evidence from California

Islam,

Saphores

2023

Transportation

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Health concerns and government restrictions have caused a surge in work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a sharp increase in telecommuting. However, it is not clear if it will perdure after the pandemic, and what socio-economic groups will be most affected. To investigate the impact of the pandemic on telecommuting, we analyzed a dataset collected for us at the end of May 2021 by Ipsos via a random survey of Californians in KnowledgePanel©, the largest and oldest probability-based panel in the US. Our structural equation models account for car ownership and housing costs to explain telecommuting frequency before, during, and possibly after the pandemic. We found that an additional 4.2% of California workers expect to engage in some level of telecommuting post-pandemic, which is substantial but possibly less than suggested in other studies. Some likely durable gains can be expected for Californians who work in management, business / finance / administration, and engineering / architecture / law / social sciences. Workers with more education started telecommuting more during the pandemic, a trend expected to continue post-pandemic. Full time work status has a negative impact on telecommuting frequency, and so does household size during and after the pandemic.

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Socio-economic Factors and Telework Status in the US during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Cited by 9 publications

References 10 publications

The prevalence of telework under Covid-19 in Canada

The prevalence of telework under Covid-19 in Canada

Pandemic transit: examining transit use changes and equity implications in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles

WILL COVID-19 jump-start telecommuting? Evidence from California

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