Changing views about remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence using panel data from Japan

TL;DR

This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced Japanese parents' attitudes towards remote work, revealing that primary school children increased support for working from home, especially post-school reopening, due to childcare challenges.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on parental attitudes towards remote work during COVID-19 using panel data and fixed effects analysis in Japan.

Findings

Parents with primary school children became more supportive of remote work during COVID-19.

Support for remote work was less affected for parents with junior high school children.

Parents with primary school children continued supporting remote work even after schools reopened.

Abstract

COVID-19 has led to school closures in Japan to cope with the pandemic. Under the state of emergency, in addition to school closure, after-school care has not been sufficiently supplied. We independently collected individual level data through internet surveys to construct short panel data from mid-March to mid-June 2020, which covered before and after the state of emergency. We analyze how the presence of school-aged children influences their parents views about working from home. After controlling for various factors using a fixed effects model, we find that in cases where parents were workers, and the children are (1) in primary school, parents are willing to promote working from home. If children are (2) in junior high school, the parents view is hardly affected. (3) Surprisingly, workers whose children are primary school pupils are most likely to support promotion of working from home after schools reopen. Due to school closure and a lack of after-school care, parents need to work from home, and this experience motivated workers with small children to continue doing so to improve work-life balance even after schools reopen.