Telework and Time Use

This chapter reviews the evidence on the relationship between telework and households' time allocation, drawing heavily on the empirical evidence from time diary data, and discusses the implications of telework for workers' productivity, wages, labor force participation, and well-being. Telework results in significant time savings for workers, as they reduce time on commuting and grooming activities by over one hour on telework days. This time is reallocated to household and leisure activities, but differentially for men and women. Men spend most of their time windfall on leisure activities; however, fathers also increase time on primary child care. Women, on the other hand, increase their household production. Children and parents benefit because they spend more time together; however, average full-time workers spend more time alone when they telework.