Working from Home: Is Our Housing Ready?

Teresa Cuerdo-Vilches, Miguel Ángel Navas-Martín and Ignacio Oteiza
Additional contact information
Teresa Cuerdo-Vilches: Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IETcc-CSIC), 28033 Madrid, Spain
Miguel Ángel Navas-Martín: Escuela Nacional de Sanidad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), 28029 Madrid, Spain
Ignacio Oteiza: Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IETcc-CSIC), 28033 Madrid, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 14, 1-28

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and the precautionary measures applied globally (lockdowns and curfews) have impacted homes, including work. Working from home (WFH) has emerged as a growing trend in the post-pandemic era. The research question was: Are our homes ready for teleworking? To respond, a national prospective mixed approach was launched for Spanish households during the spring 2020 lockdown, using two online questionnaires, one quantitative and the other qualitative. Through a survey, photographs, and narratives, the study evaluates the perceived adequacy of telework spaces and their specific characteristics, the availability of digital resources and the internet. A total of 1800 surveys and over 200 images and texts related to telework environments were obtained. The results suggest that the adequacy of these spaces was insufficient for more than a quarter of the homes. Also, strong relations between the perceived workspace adequacy and a social status or stability of homes were shown and validated, despite other sociodemographic features, the home composition or habitat were not related. Some other variables statistically significant were occupation regime, type and surface of dwellings; their indoor environmental quality; the availability of exclusive spaces for teleworking; quality of digital resources; and the specific space features. The analysis was completed with qualitative insights through photos and texts. Telework, lived in this context as an experiment, needs this reflection from an environmental, resource-availability, and ergonomic point of view.

Keywords: COVID-19; confinement; telework; comfort; home spaces; telework space adequacy index (TSAI); photo; narrative; mixed-method; remote work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7329/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7329/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7329-:d:590925

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().