60 Million Fewer Commuting Hours Per Day: How Americans Use Time Saved by Working from Home

Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom and Steven Davis

No 2020-132, Working Papers from Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics

Abstract: Drawing on original surveys of our own design, we estimate that the pandemic-induced shift to working from home lowers commuting time among Americans by more than 60 million hours per work day. Cumulative time savings over the past seven months exceed 9 billion hours. Our survey data also say that Americans devote about 35% of the time savings to their primary jobs and about 60% to work activities of all sorts, including household chores and child care. The allocation of time savings is broadly similar for men and women and across groups defined by race and ethnicity, but it differs substantially by education group and between persons with and without children at home.

Pages: 9 pages
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (38)

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