Who can work at home around the world?
In poor countries self-employed share is large & their occupational composition not conducive to work from home, study from Jan Grobovšek shows.
A study into the share of employment that can work from home in countries with different income levels shows that in urban areas, this share is only about 20% in poor countries, compared to close to 40% in rich ones.
Self Employment
This result is driven by the self-employed workers: in poor countries their share of employment is large and their occupational composition not conducive to work from home. At the level of the entire country, the share of employment that can work from home in poor countries compared to rich countries depends on farmers' ability to work from home. This finding is due to the high agricultural employment share in poor countries.
Social distancing policies
A lower ability to work from home implies a greater potential cost of social distancing policies. The trade-off between the costs and benefits of such policies might thus be different in low-income countries.
This result is driven by the self-employed workers: in poor countries their share of employment is large and their occupational composition not conducive to work from home. At the level of the entire country, the share of employment that can work from home in poor countries compared to rich countries depends on farmers' ability to work from home. This finding is due to the high agricultural employment share in poor countries.