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The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a massive turn to remote work, followed by subsequent shifts for many into hybrid or fully returning to the office. To understand the patterned dynamics of subjective well-being associated with shifting places of work, we conducted a nationally representative panel survey (October 2020 and April 2021) of U.S. employees who worked remotely at some point since the pandemic (N = 1,817). Cluster analysis identified four patterned constellations of well-being based on burnout, work–life conflict, and job and life satisfaction. A total return to office is generally more stressful, leading to significantly lower probabilities of being in the optimal low stress/high satisfaction constellation by Wave 2, especially for men and women without care obligations. Remote and hybrid arrangements have salutary effects; moving to hybrid is especially positive for minority men and less educated men, although it disadvantages White women’s well-being.
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The Future(s) of Work? Disparities Around Changing Job Conditions When Remote/Hybrid or Returning to Working at Work
The future of work is ambiguous at best. Despite widespread shifts to remote/hybrid work during the COVID-19 lockdown, there is a paucity of knowledge about changing job conditions in tandem with different work locales. Is the move to remote/hybrid work a disrupter or accentuator of existing norms and inequalities? Drawing on nationally representative, four-wave panel survey data (October 2020 to April 2022) collected from U.S. workers who spent at least some time working from home since the pandemic onset, we examine effects of within-person changes in where respondents work on changes in job conditions (psychological job demands, job control, coworker support, and monitoring). Estimates from fixed-effects models show that, compared with returning to working at work, ongoing remote and moving to hybrid work lead to greater reductions in psychological job demands, especially among older women and men. Black and Hispanic women moving back to the office experience the greatest loss of decision latitude and schedule control. While white workers see increased coworker support when returning to the office, returning Black and Hispanic men report a decline in coworker support. Family caregivers’ job conditions do not improve whether remote/hybrid or returning to work. Qualitative data collected from Amazon Mechanic Turk illuminate mechanisms leading to salutary effects of remote work, but also the stress of combining jobs with family carework.
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- PAR ID:
- 10549482
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Work and Occupations
- Volume:
- 52
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0730-8884
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 91-129
- Size(s):
- p. 91-129
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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