Potential benefits and determinants of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Japanese Household Panel Data

Abstract

This study examines the impact of remote work on subjective well-being, such as subjective productivity, work engagement, and health condition, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also identifies the characteristics of workers and jobs that contribute to the continuous implementation of remote work, using data from the “Japan Household Panel Survey (JHPS)” and “JHPS Special Survey for COVID-19 (Waves 1 and 2).” As for the characteristics of remote work, multinomial logit models indicate that remote work tends to be continuously conducted in workplaces where performance rather than hours worked is valued, flexible work arrangements are allowed, and better management practices are conducted. In addition, workers with better IT skills, those exposed to new technologies, and those engaged in abstract tasks are more likely to work remotely after the state of emergency. Regarding the impact of remote work, we conjecture that the exogenous shift to remote work due to the pandemic had a heterogeneous impact on workers. The first difference models, where unobservable time-invariant worker heterogeneity has been removed, indicate a positive impact on subjective well-being for those who continued to work remotely after the state of emergency was lifted in 2020. Those who only worked remotely as a stopgap measure during the first state of emergency experienced negative impacts of remote work.