Working from Home and Emotional Well-Being during Major Daily Activities

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Psychology
• Economics

Background:

• The impact of working from home (WFH) on the quality of life for U.S. workers remains unclear.
• Understanding the association between WFH and emotional well-being is crucial for assessing its societal effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the association between working from home and overall emotional well-being among U.S. workers.
• To investigate how WFH influences emotional well-being during various daily activities.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the 2021 Well-Being Module of the American Time Use Survey.
• Employed principal component analysis to create an emotional well-being score.
• Applied a seemingly unrelated regression framework to jointly estimate WFH effects.

Main Results:

• Workers who engaged in working from home reported higher emotional well-being scores while working.
• A positive association was observed between WFH and emotional well-being during eating away from home.
• No statistically significant differences in emotional well-being were found for home-based activities like relaxing or leisure.

Conclusions:

• Working from home positively influences emotional well-being in specific contexts, particularly during work and meals outside the home.
• The benefits of WFH on emotional well-being may be context-dependent, not extending to all daily activities.
• These findings provide insights into how remote work arrangements shape the day-to-day quality of life for employees.