Research

Abstract: Does working from home (WFH) affect fertility? Using administrative records from a large German statutory health insurer, I study 684,520 employed women aged 20–39 observed monthly from 2018 through 2024. I exploit the pandemic-induced expansion of remote work in a difference-in-differences design, comparing women in occupations with different levels of pre-pandemic WFH potential. I find no persistent aggregate effect on births, but substantial heterogeneity by age. A 10-percentage-point increase in WFH potential raises births by 7.0% among women aged 20–30, but reduces births by 2.5% among women aged 31–39. These effects largely offset in the aggregate. The age-specific effects are consistent with greater fertility planning among younger women and more pregnancy terminations among older women. WFH may facilitate transition into motherhood while making additional births less attractive for some mothers. Among younger women, the positive fertility effect is stronger in regions with greater childcare constraints, consistent with remote work easing the combination of childbearing and employment where formal childcare is scarce.

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a sudden and lasting shift to work-from-home (WFH) in many occupations. However, we know very little about how WFH affects health-related absenteeism and health. In this paper, we use the sharp increase in WFH in Germany in March 2020 as a natural experiment to examine its short- and medium-term effects on sick leave take-up. Specifically, we exploit the pre-pandemic variation in WFH potential across occupations and link it to individual data on health care utilization and diagnoses between 2018 and 2023 from a large statutory health insurance fund. Combining event studies and a difference-in-difference design, we compare the sick leave taking of individuals who held jobs with different WFH potentials. We find that higher WFH potential persistently decreases sickness absence. The effect is driven by short-term sick leave due to minor infections and musculoskeletal problems such as back pain.

Abstract: Commuting is a fundamental aspect of employees’ daily routines and continues to evolve with technological advancements. Yet the effects of commuting on subjective well-being remain insufficiently investigated in the context of expanding digital connectivity. This paper examines the causal effects of changes in commuting distance on subjective well-being in an era of widespread mobile internet availability. Exploiting exogenous shifts in commuting distance resulting from employer-driven workplace relocations, we employ a Difference-in-Differences framework using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 2010 to 2019. Our results show that an involuntary increase in commuting distance reduces life satisfaction by 3 percent, on average, and heightens feelings of worry by almost 8 percent, on average. Our heterogeneity analysis shows that increased mobile coverage during commutes partially mitigates the decline in life satisfaction but exacerbates the negative impact on satisfaction with leisure.