Individualism and working from home

Abstract

We show that culturally transmitted individualism is an important determinant of working from home (WFH). Using individual-level data from the U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) and the European Social Survey (ESS), we compare immigrants and their descendants from different cultural backgrounds residing in the same location. A 10-point increase in country-of-origin individualism (0–100 scale) increases the likelihood of WFH by 3.9 percentage points and WFH hours by 1.12 per week in the CPS, and frequent WFH by 2 percentage points in the ESS. Individualism appears to affect WFH partly through higher educational attainment and occupational selection.