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01.08.2024 | Research Paper

Gender and Well-Being Disparities Among People who Work from Home in Chile

verfasst von: Rodrigo Montero, Natalia Bernal

Erschienen in: Journal of Happiness Studies | Ausgabe 6/2024

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Abstract

The objective of this article is to estimate the relationship between working from home (WFH) and the subjective well-being of Chilean workers. In particular, the relationship between WFH and life satisfaction, job satisfaction and mental health problems is evaluated. The results show that women who work from home are more satisfied with their lives. Additionally, both men and women are more satisfied with their jobs. A positive relationship is found between working from home and mental health problems in the case of men. When we explore the existence of other heterogeneous results, it can be seen that for those who have children aged between 6 and 17 years, there is a positive relationship between WFH and job satisfaction. The same thing can be seen in homes where there is no overcrowding, and also among married people. For married women, a negative relationship is observed between working from home and mental health problems; however, this relationship is positive for single women.

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Fußnoten
1
It should be noted that teleworking is a concept that involves different types of work arrangements, such as working on the move, working based on clients’ location and working from home (Morganson et al., 2010).
 
2
Given the strong restrictions on mobility imposed by the health authority, teleworking in Chile basically consisted of working from home.
 
4
The statistics provided by the INE correspond to teleworking, which could occur under different modalities. Notwithstanding the above, given the strong restrictions imposed by the health authority on people’s mobility, it can be assumed that the teleworking presented in this graph essentially corresponds to WFH.
 
5
It should be noted that the CASEN (Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional) survey does usually collect information of this type; however, this survey was constructed from a subsample of the CASEN, to which a short version of the original questionnaire was applied. In addition, some questions related to subjective well-being were added.
 
6
The sample design is probabilistic, two-phased and stratified; therefore, there are weights that are incorporated into each of the estimates.
 
7
The CASEN survey takes place in the country every two or three years and collects information at the household level on different dimensions, such as employment, housing, health and income, among others. The CASEN survey is used for the design and evaluation of various social policies.
 
8
The question posed to determine life satisfaction is the following: All things considered, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life right now?, where 1 is completely dissatisfied, 2 is dissatisfied, 3 is indifferent, 4 is satisfied and 5 is totally satisfied. In terms of job satisfaction, the following question is applied: How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your current job?, where 1 is totally dissatisfied, 2 is dissatisfied, 3 is indifferent, 4 is satisfied and 5 is totally satisfied.
 
9
This variable is constructed from the answers to the following question: In your current job, can you do your work from home? The alternatives are: 1 “Yes”, 2 “No”.
 
10
This corresponds to the sum of the income obtained by the members of the household. This includes earned income, financial assets, pensions and subsidies obtained from the government.
 
11
Overcrowding inside the home affects people’s quality of life and therefore their subjective well-being. This variable ranges from 1 to 4, where 1 is no overcrowding, and a value of 4 indicates high overcrowding. The overcrowding index is an indicator that evaluates the quality of housing in terms of habitability according to the space available in the home for bedrooms. It is calculated as the ratio between the number of people residing in the home and the number of bedrooms in it, taking into consideration exclusive or multiple-use rooms. It considers the following categories: no overcrowding (fewer than 2.5 people per bedroom), medium (2.5 to 3.4), high (3.5 to 4.9) and critical (5 or more). Full access to the questionnaire can be obtained at: https://​observatorio.​ministeriodesarr​ollosocial.​gob.​cl/​encuesta-bienestar-social-2021.
 
12
In thousands of Chilean pesos.
 
13
It is worth mentioning that since the estimation of Eq. (1) involves estimating only with a sample of employed people, there could be a problem of selection bias (Heckman, 1979). Therefore, to evaluate the existence of this problem, the model was re-estimated but corrected by the Heckman method in two stages. When we do that the results are maintained.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
Gender and Well-Being Disparities Among People who Work from Home in Chile
verfasst von
Rodrigo Montero
Natalia Bernal
Publikationsdatum
01.08.2024
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in
Journal of Happiness Studies / Ausgabe 6/2024
Print ISSN: 1389-4978
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-7780
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00773-4