Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries

The spread of COVID-19 and implementation of "social distancing" policies around the world have raised the question of how many jobs can be done at home. This paper uses skills surveys from 53 countries at varying levels of economic devel...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hatayama, Maho, Viollaz, Mariana, Winkler, Hernan
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/673341589224762491/Jobs-Amenability-to-Working-from-Home-Evidence-from-Skills-Surveys-for-53-Countries
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33753
id okr-10986-33753
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-337532022-09-20T00:11:21Z Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries Hatayama, Maho Viollaz, Mariana Winkler, Hernan INTERNET ACCESS HOME-BASED WORK TELEWORK ICT INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY LABOR MARKET LABOR SKILLS CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 CONNECTIVITY ECONOMIC CRISIS The spread of COVID-19 and implementation of "social distancing" policies around the world have raised the question of how many jobs can be done at home. This paper uses skills surveys from 53 countries at varying levels of economic development to estimate jobs' amenability to working from home. The paper considers jobs' characteristics and uses internet access at home as an important determinant of working from home. The findings indicate that the amenability of jobs to working from home increases with the level of economic development of the country. This is driven by jobs in poor countries being more intensive in physical/manual tasks, using less information and communications technology, and having poorer internet connectivity at home. Women, college graduates, and salaried and formal workers have jobs that are more amenable to working from home than the average worker. The opposite holds for workers in hotels and restaurants, construction, agriculture, and commerce. The paper finds that the crisis may exacerbate inequities between and within countries. It also finds that occupations explain less than half of the variability in the working-from-home indexes within countries, which highlights the importance of using individual-level data to assess jobs’ amenability to working from home. 2020-05-14T20:38:40Z 2020-05-14T20:38:40Z 2020-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/673341589224762491/Jobs-Amenability-to-Working-from-Home-Evidence-from-Skills-Surveys-for-53-Countries http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33753 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9241 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic INTERNET ACCESS
HOME-BASED WORK
TELEWORK
ICT
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
LABOR MARKET
LABOR SKILLS
CORONAVIRUS
COVID-19
CONNECTIVITY
ECONOMIC CRISIS
spellingShingle INTERNET ACCESS
HOME-BASED WORK
TELEWORK
ICT
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
LABOR MARKET
LABOR SKILLS
CORONAVIRUS
COVID-19
CONNECTIVITY
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Hatayama, Maho
Viollaz, Mariana
Winkler, Hernan
Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9241
description The spread of COVID-19 and implementation of "social distancing" policies around the world have raised the question of how many jobs can be done at home. This paper uses skills surveys from 53 countries at varying levels of economic development to estimate jobs' amenability to working from home. The paper considers jobs' characteristics and uses internet access at home as an important determinant of working from home. The findings indicate that the amenability of jobs to working from home increases with the level of economic development of the country. This is driven by jobs in poor countries being more intensive in physical/manual tasks, using less information and communications technology, and having poorer internet connectivity at home. Women, college graduates, and salaried and formal workers have jobs that are more amenable to working from home than the average worker. The opposite holds for workers in hotels and restaurants, construction, agriculture, and commerce. The paper finds that the crisis may exacerbate inequities between and within countries. It also finds that occupations explain less than half of the variability in the working-from-home indexes within countries, which highlights the importance of using individual-level data to assess jobs’ amenability to working from home.
format Working Paper
author Hatayama, Maho
Viollaz, Mariana
Winkler, Hernan
author_facet Hatayama, Maho
Viollaz, Mariana
Winkler, Hernan
author_sort Hatayama, Maho
title Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
title_short Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
title_full Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
title_fullStr Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
title_full_unstemmed Jobs' Amenability to Working from Home : Evidence from Skills Surveys for 53 Countries
title_sort jobs' amenability to working from home : evidence from skills surveys for 53 countries
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2020
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/673341589224762491/Jobs-Amenability-to-Working-from-Home-Evidence-from-Skills-Surveys-for-53-Countries
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33753
_version_ 1764479444319207424