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...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| 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 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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