Exploring the Gender Gap in Teleworking from Home. The Roles of Worker's Characteristics, Occupational Positions and Gender Equality in Europe.

Previous research suggests an under-representation of women among teleworkers before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, we know little about whether such a gender gap was substantial, and whether it could be explained by occupational gender segregation. We explore whether a gender gap in regularly teleworking existed in the EU-28 and analyse its possible constituents, drawing on data from the European Working Conditions Survey 2015. To form a group of potential teleworkers, the analytical sample was restricted to employees who made use of information and communication technology (N ≈ 16,000). Country fixed effects regression and multilevel models were applied. The results show that women were under-represented among teleworkers compared to men, also when occupational gender segregation is taken into account; the remaining gender gap in telework is estimated at 10%. For women, working part-time and working in the private sector was associated with lower incidences of telework, but not for men. Country characteristics explain a small but significant share of telework incidence. In countries that rank high on the Gender Equality Index and have a large public sector, telework was widespread, whereas it was less present in countries with higher shares of women in the fields of science and engineering. The findings support the view that the gender gap in teleworking from home is a matter of historically grown gender inequality. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-023-03133-6.

Continuance intention of IT professionals to telecommute post pandemic: A modified expectation confirmation model perspective

This study investigates employees' intentions to telecommute postpandemic based on IT employees' present work experiences. Perceived utility, contentment, and confirmation of expectations are proposed as factors of continuing intention to telecommute, according to the expectation-confirmation theory. The integration of work-life balance into the expectation confirmation theory was investigated to see if work-life balance influences employees' continued intention to telecommute. Data from 131 Malaysian IT workers was used to test the hypothesised model. The findings backed up the theory that perceived usefulness, satisfaction, confirmation of expectations, and work-life balance all play a role in employees' desire to continue telecommuting postpandemic. Work-life balance was also found to be a significant mediator of the effect of expectation confirmation on job satisfaction. As a result, this research adds to the idea by including work-life balance literature to demonstrate that the behaviour of IT professionals is associated with their quality of work-life harmony. This study can assist businesses that plan to transition to hybrid work environments. With the needs of the emerging workplace still being uncharted territory for everyone, hybrid work models can be built and customized based on the findings of this study. This is imperative to fit the needs of employees and help organisations sustain their businesses. © 2022 Hong Kong Bao Long Accounting And Secretarial Limited. All rights reserved.

Telecommuting and trip chaining: Pre-pandemic patterns and implications for the post-pandemic world

Telecommuting has boomed in popularity during the pandemic and is expected to remain at elevated levels persistently. Using 2009 and 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Surveys, we investigate if there exist consistent modification influences of telecommuting on trip-chaining behavior in the decade prior to the pandemic. We find telecommuting significantly increases people's propensity to chain trips, raises trip chaining frequency, and encourages more complex trip chains. Furthermore, these impacts are significant on commuting days, which suggests that telecommuters still have different trip chaining behavior than non-telecommuters on the days when they commute to the workplace. While trip chaining has been encouraged under pandemic conditions to minimize health risks, heightened health concerns will fade as the pandemic recedes. With telecommuting likely to persist, unraveling how trip chaining behavior had changed in response to telecommuting before the pandemic helps policymakers better understand the long-term changes in travel behavior in the post-pandemic world. [ FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and the future of telecommuting in the United States.

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.

Executive orders or public fear: What caused transit ridership to drop in Chicago during COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic has induced significant transit ridership losses worldwide. This paper conducts a quantitative analysis to reveal contributing factors to such losses, using data from the Chicago Transit Authority's bus and rail systems before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. It builds a sequential statistical modeling framework that integrates a Bayesian structural time-series model, a dynamics model, and a series of linear regression models, to fit the ridership loss with pandemic evolution and regulatory events, and to quantify how the impacts of those factors depend on socio-demographic characteristics. Results reveal that, for both bus and rail, remote learning/working answers for the majority of ridership loss, and their impacts depend highly on socio-demographic characteristics. Findings from this study cast insights into future evolution of transit ridership as well as recovery campaigns in the post-pandemic era.

A statistical assessment of work-from-home participation during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically transformed industry, healthcare, mobility, and education. Many workers have been forced to shift to work-from-home, adjust their commute patterns, and/or adopt new behaviors. Particularly important in the context of mitigating transportation-related emissions is the shift to work-from-home. This paper focuses on two major shifts along different stages of the pandemic. First, it investigates switching to work-from-home during the pandemic, followed by assessing the likelihood of continuing to work-from-home as opposed to returning to the workplace. This second assessment, being conditioned on workers having experienced work-from-home as the result of the pandemic, allows important insights into the factors affecting work-from-home probabilities. Using a survey collected in July and August of 2020, it is found that nearly 50 percent of the respondents who did not work-from-home before but started to work-from-home during the COVID-19 pandemic, indicated the willingness to continue work-from-home. A total of 1,275 observations collected using the survey questionnaire, that was administered through a U.S. nationwide panel (Prime Panels), were used in the model estimation. The methodological approach used to study work-from-home probabilities in this paper captures the complexities of human behavior by considering the effects of unobserved heterogeneity in a multivariate context, which allows for new insights into the effect of explanatory variables on the likelihood of working from home. Random parameters logit model estimations (with heterogeneity in the means and variances of random parameters) revealed additional insights into factors affecting work-from-home probabilities. It was found that gender, age, income, the presence of children, education, residential location, or job sectors including marketing, information technologies, business, or administration/administrative support all played significant roles in explaining these behavioral shifts and post-pandemic preferences.

Surviving Work from Home: Observations from Singapore.

Circuit Breaker measures were implemented in Singapore on 7 April 2020, and work from home arrangements were officially made compulsory for most due to COVID-19. This study assessed the effects of prolonged telecommuting within the Singapore Police. Items on productivity, satisfaction with telecommuting, work-life effectiveness, feelings of safety, stress levels, connectedness to and support by colleagues, and supervisors were included. The study found that while prolonged telecommuting did not have any impact on levels of satisfaction with telecommuting, individuals with caregiving duties were significantly less satisfied with telecommuting than non-caregivers. Implications of the findings were discussed with respect to the necessary support required by officers while telecommuting. Recommendations on how individuals can practice self-care while telecommuting for prolonged periods were also proposed.

Computer workstation ergonomics: Current evidence for evaluation, corrections, and recommendations for remote evaluation.

STUDY DESIGN: Literature Review INTRODUCTION: Computer use in the workplace has increased substantially since the start of the information age in the mid-1980s through 2020. Desktops, laptops, and tablets are essential tools for communication and project management. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers have transitioned to work from home (WFH) to sustain public health emergency guidelines, and it is anticipated that many WFH jobs will be maintained post-pandemic. The transition to WFH occurred rapidly without time to establish ideal workstations. Ergonomic assessments that were typically performed in person needed to be performed using virtual technology. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: The purpose of this review is (1) to describe the components of a computer workstation evaluation; (2) to offer suggestions for identifying computer workstation problems that may be contributing to the client's musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and symptoms; (3) to provide suggestions that may improve the safety and comfort at the computer workstation, and (4) to suggest a method of completing the workstation analysis virtually, without onsite in-person evaluation. METHODS AND RESULTS: There is a paucity of peer-reviewed literature regarding computer workstation evaluations to be performed in person, let alone using a virtual method. The components of computer workstation evaluations have been recommended by regulatory agencies that survey injuries in the workplace. Prior to 2020, these evaluations were done in person at the office workstation. Modifications in data collection were needed to transition the analysis to a reliable virtual format. The remote method described provides a consistent approach that engages the client in the process.

A rapid review of mental and physical health effects of working at home: how do we optimise health?

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in changes to the working arrangements of millions of employees who are now based at home and may continue to work at home, in some capacity, for the foreseeable future. Decisions on how to promote employees' health whilst working at home (WAH) need to be based on the best available evidence to optimise worker outcomes. The aim of this rapid review was to review the impact of WAH on individual workers' mental and physical health, and determine any gender difference, to develop recommendations for employers and employees to optimise workers' health. METHOD: A search was undertaken in three databases, PsychInfo, ProQuest, and Web of Science, from 2007 to May 2020. Selection criteria included studies which involved employees who regularly worked at home, and specifically reported on physical or mental health-related outcomes. Two review authors independently screened studies for inclusion, one author extracted data and conducted risk of bias assessments with review by a second author. RESULTS: Twenty-three papers meet the selection criteria for this review. Ten health outcomes were reported: pain, self-reported health, safety, well-being, stress, depression, fatigue, quality of life, strain and happiness. The impact on health outcomes was strongly influenced by the degree of organisational support available to employees, colleague support, social connectedness (outside of work), and levels of work to family conflict. Overall, women were less likely to experience improved health outcomes when WAH. CONCLUSIONS: This review identified several health outcomes affected by WAH. The health/work relationship is complex and requires consideration of broader system factors to optimise the effects of WAH on workers' health. It is likely mandated WAH will continue to some degree for the foreseeable future; organisations will need to implement formalised WAH policies that consider work-home boundary management support, role clarity, workload, performance indicators, technical support, facilitation of co-worker networking, and training for managers.