Remote Working and Mental Health During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

We use longitudinal data from the SHARE survey to estimate the causal effect of remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of senior Europeans. We face endogeneity concerns both for the probability of being employed during the pandemic and for the choice of different work arrangements conditional on employment. Our research design overcomes these issues by exploiting variation in the technical feasibility of remote working across occupations and in the legal restrictions to in-presence work across sectors. We estimate that remote working increases the probability of reporting feelings of sadness and depression. This effect is larger for women, respondents with children at home and singles, as well as in regions with low restrictions and low excess death rates due to the pandemic. Our results warn policy makers about the potential negative consequences of remote working for mental health in the post-pandemic situation.

Note:
Funding Information: Research in this article is a part of the H2020 SHARE-COVID19 project (Grant agreement No. 101015924). This paper uses data from SHARE Waves 1 to 8 (DOIs: 10.6103 / SHARE.w1.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w2.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w3.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w4.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w5.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w6.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w7.800, 10.6103 / SHARE.w8.800, 10.6103 / SHARE. w8ca.800). The SHARE data collection has been funded by the Eu- ropean Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006- 028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA No. 211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA No. 227822, SHARE M4: GA No. 261982, DASISH: GA No. 283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA No. 676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA No. 870628, SERISS: GA No. 654221, SSHOC: GA No. 823782, SHARE-COVID19: GA No. 101015924) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG BSR06-11, OGHA 04-064, HHSN27 1201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).

Conflict of Interests: None.

Keywords: Mental health, remote working, COVID-19, SHARE