About the Project
Funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2032639 and 2049125 ), this project has collected nationally representative panel data over 18 months (October 2020 to April 2022), as well as qualitative survey data using Amazon Mechanical Turk on remote workers. We aim to understand continuities, changes, and disparities in:
- The experiences of remote work and technologies enabling it, including disparities by gender, race/ethnicity, age/life-course stage, and socioeconomic status;
- The relationships between job demands, resources, and quality of life; and
- Potential futures of remote work post COVID-19 in terms of workers’ shifting preferences for particular working conditions and for remote work more broadly, as well as any mismatches between preferences and actual arrangements.
You can find copies of the following publications here.
Publications
Fan, Wen, and Phyllis Moen. 2022. Working More, Less or the Same During COVID-19? A Mixed Method, Intersectional Analysis of Remote Workers. Work and Occupations 49(2): 143–186.
- Women are at greater risk of change (either a major decrease or a major increase)—rather than stability—in work hours during the pandemic-precipitated transition to remote work
- Women and men in the sandwich generation, as well as women (but not men) with pre-school children, are the most likely to report a decrease in work hours (Figure 2)
- Women without a college degree are more likely to have a decrease in work hours, while women with an advanced degree and women managers report a considerable increase in work hours (Figure 4)
- Qualitative data illuminate why work hours change or remain stable for remote workers during COVID-19
- See a summary of the article in Work in Progress
Fan, Wen, and Phyllis Moen. 2023. Ongoing Remote Work, Returning to Working at Work, or In Between during COVID-19: What Promotes Subjective Well-being? Journal of Health and Social Behavior 64(1): 152–171.
- 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 (Figure 3a)
- Remote and hybrid arrangements have salutary effects; moving to hybrid is especially positive for minority men (Figure 3b) and less educated men (Figure 3c), although it disadvantages White women’s well-being (Figure 3b)
Fan, Wen, and Phyllis Moen. Forthcoming. The Future(s) of Work? Disparities Around Changing Job Conditions When Remote/Hybrid or Returning to Working at Work? Work and Occupations.
- Estimates from fixed-effects models show that, compared with ongoing remote or moving to hybrid work, returning to working at work leads to greater increases in psychological job demands for both women and men, and for women, greater reductions in decision latitude and schedule control though higher coworker support (Table 2)
- Black and Hispanic women moving back to the office experience the greatest loss of decision latitude and schedule control (rows 1 and 2 in Figure 1). While white workers see increased coworker support when returning to the office, returning Black men report a decline in coworker support (row 3 in Figure 1)
- The transition into remote/hybrid work has led some to question the conventional office environment, which may well be precipitating new institutional logics endorsing alternative workplace arrangements and cultures (see the quote included)
Fan, Wen, and Phyllis Moen. 2024. The Shifting Stress of Working Parents: An Examination of Dual Pandemic Disruptions—Remote Work and Remote Schooling. Social Sciences 13(1): 36.