Work from Home and Time Allocation*

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of remote work (work from home, WFH) on time use for work, housework, leisure, and sleep in daily life. We use time-use survey data for Japan. We find that WFH tends to reduce working hours. By WFH, females tend to spend more time on housework, while males tend to devote more time to leisure. However, WFH involves heterogeneous impacts on time reallocation among different groups. For instance, for single males, there is no substantial impact of WFH on time allocation, whereas single females tend to allocate less time to work and more time to leisure than married females (e.g., relaxing in the afternoon and watching TV late at night). However, WFH allows married females, as well as males with a child, to increase childcare hours, thereby allowing males to devote more time to childcare. This will change traditional gender roles in Japan. JEL: J22