Program > Papers by author > Ben Yahmed Sarra

Working from Home: Heterogeneous Effects on Hours Worked and Wages
Sarra Ben Yahmed  1@  , Melanie Arntz  2@  , Francesco Berlingieri  2@  
1 : ZEW Mannheim
L7, 1 68161 Mannheim -  Germany
2 : ZEW Mannheim

Working from home (WfH) has become more and more common since the early 2000s. In this paper, we investigate how such a work arrangement affects hours of work including overtime, wages, job and life satisfaction among women and men. We exploit five waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel between 1997 and 2014. Controlling for individual fixed effects, we find that the take-up of WfH leads to an expansion of overtime hours among childless employees by one hour a week with no significant compensation in monthly income but a marginal increase in satisfaction. In contrast, parents increase contractual hours, fathers by 0.4 hours a week and mothers by 3.5 hours per week. Hence, WfH contributes to the closing of the gender gap in working hours and monthly income. In addition, hourly wages increase by 7% for fathers and 11% for mothers with WfH, although the wage increase for mothers only applies to those who changed employer. Controlling for selection into paid employment due to changes in unobserved characteristics or preferences does not affect the magnitude of the effects.


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