Collaborative Research: Continuity and Change in Remote Work

对于数百万美国工人来说，2019冠状病毒病大流行开创了远程工作的新时代，这已经不可逆转地改变了工作文化和技术。该项目将调查远程工作的连续性、变化和差异及其对生活质量的影响。它将研究员工对远程工作的偏好，人们如何适应远程工作，以及远程工作如何影响员工的幸福感。该研究将通过考虑不同人生阶段、教育水平和人口背景的不同经历来阐明远程工作中的不平等现象。该项目旨在为决策者提供有关美国劳动力期望和偏好的战略见解，并帮助雇主优化远程工作安排。该项目将进行三次新的调查，这些调查来自一项具有全国代表性的调查，调查对象是在COVID-19大流行爆发后以某种形式远程工作的3023名美国人。这三波调查以2020年10月进行的基线调查为基础。受访者来自美国最大的基于概率的在线调查小组KnowledgePanel。该调查结合了广泛使用的衡量工作条件、幸福感和员工偏好的量表，以及旨在捕捉员工在家工作和回到现场工作经历的开放式问题。这项研究将追踪不同分组中远程工作的人口趋势。研究人员还将使用多元回归模型来检查被调查者在工作条件、生活质量和适应策略方面的连续性、变化和差异。这些发现将为有关工作、健康和福祉以及社会和经济不平等的社会学理论提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

For millions of U.S. workers, the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new era of remote work, which has shifted irreversibly the culture and technologies of work. This project will investigate continuities, changes, and disparities in remote work and its effects on quality of life. It will study workers’ preferences for remote work, how people adapt to working remotely, and how remote work affects workers’ well-being. The research will illuminate inequalities in remote work by considering varied experiences across life-course stages, educational levels, and demographic backgrounds. This project aims to provide decision-makers with strategic insights into the expectations and preferences of the American workforce, and to help employers optimize remote work arrangements.The project will field three new survey waves drawing from a nationally representative survey of 3,023 Americans who worked remotely in some form after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three survey waves build on a baseline survey fielded in October 2020. Respondents are drawn from KnowledgePanel, the largest probability-based online panel in the U.S. The survey combines widely used scales that measure working conditions, well-being, and worker preferences, with open-ended questions designed to capture workers’ experiences of working from home and returning to in-person work. The study will track population trends in remote work across various subgroups. Researchers will also use multivariate regression models to examine continuities, changes, and disparities in respondents’ working conditions, quality of life, and adaptive strategies. The findings will inform sociological theories of work, health and wellbeing, and social and economic inequalities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.