Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Teleworking Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States: A Mediation Analysis

Abay Asfaw
Additional contact information
Abay Asfaw: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Washington, DC 20201, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 8, 1-18

Abstract: A growing literature has pointed out disparities in teleworking among different racial and ethnic (hereafter racial) workers. This study estimated racial disparities in teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent to which these disparities were mediated by four-year college education and occupation in the United States. The data source for this study was the Current Population Survey, May 2020 through July 2021. The results showed that in the reduced model, the odds for Black and Hispanic workers to telework were 35% and 55% lower, respectively, and for Asian workers 44% higher than for White workers, controlling for covariates. When four-year college education and occupation were included as mediator variables in the model, the odds for Black and Hispanic workers to telework were reduced to 7% and 16%, respectively. Overall, disparities in four-year college education and occupation explained 83% and 78% of the variation in the odds of teleworking for Black and Hispanic workers, respectively. Between the mediators, occupation explained more than 60% of the total effect. The results of this study could not rule out the possibility of racial discrimination in teleworking. Ultimately, reducing racial disparities in four-year college education and in different occupations might be a long-term solution for reducing racial disparities in teleworking.

Keywords: teleworking; racial and ethnic disparities; occupation; college education; mediation analysis; current population survey; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4680/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4680/ (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:19:y:2022:i:8:p:4680-:d:792716

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 ().