TY - JOUR
T1 - The COVID-19 pandemic and the future of telecommuting in the United States
AU - Salon, Deborah
AU - Mirtich, Laura
AU - Bhagat-Conway, Matthew Wigginton
AU - Costello, Adam
AU - Rahimi, Ehsan
AU - Mohammadian, Abolfazl (Kouros)
AU - Chauhan, Rishabh Singh
AU - Derrible, Sybil
AU - da Silva Baker, Denise
AU - Pendyala, Ram M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID program under grants no. 2030156 and 2029962 and by the Center for Teaching Old Models New Tricks (TOMNET), a University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation through grant no. 69A3551747116, as well as by the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University. This COVID-19 Working Group effort was also supported by the NSF-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (NSF Award #1841338) and the NSF CAREER award under grant no. 155173. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/11
Y1 - 2022/11
N2 - This study focuses on an important transport-related long-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: an increase in telecommuting. Analyzing a nationally representative panel survey of adults, we find that 40–50% of workers expect to telecommute at least a few times per month post-pandemic, up from 24% pre-COVID. If given the option, 90–95% of those who first telecommuted during the pandemic plan to continue the practice regularly. We also find that new telecommuters are demographically similar to pre-COVID telecommuters. Both pre- and post-COVID, higher educational attainment and income, together with certain job categories, largely determine whether workers have the option to telecommute. Despite growth in telecommuting, approximately half of workers expect to remain unable to telecommute and between 2/3 and 3/4 of workers expect their post-pandemic telecommuting patterns to be unchanged from their pre-COVID patterns. This limits the contribution telecommuting can make to reducing peak hour transport demand.
AB - This study focuses on an important transport-related long-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: an increase in telecommuting. Analyzing a nationally representative panel survey of adults, we find that 40–50% of workers expect to telecommute at least a few times per month post-pandemic, up from 24% pre-COVID. If given the option, 90–95% of those who first telecommuted during the pandemic plan to continue the practice regularly. We also find that new telecommuters are demographically similar to pre-COVID telecommuters. Both pre- and post-COVID, higher educational attainment and income, together with certain job categories, largely determine whether workers have the option to telecommute. Despite growth in telecommuting, approximately half of workers expect to remain unable to telecommute and between 2/3 and 3/4 of workers expect their post-pandemic telecommuting patterns to be unchanged from their pre-COVID patterns. This limits the contribution telecommuting can make to reducing peak hour transport demand.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Disruption
KW - Remote work
KW - Survey
KW - Telecommute
KW - Telework
KW - Work from home
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U2 - 10.1016/j.trd.2022.103473
DO - 10.1016/j.trd.2022.103473
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140761239
SN - 1361-9209
VL - 112
JO - Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment
JF - Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment
M1 - 103473
ER -