The remote work evolution : Assessing the Impact of Remote Work Feasibility on Real Wages Between Occupations and Genders

Sammanfattning

This thesis studies the effects of remote work feasibility on real wages and the gender wage gap between work from home feasible and non-work from home feasible occupations on the Swedish labor market. Using a Difference-in-Differences framework and event study allow for both constant and dynamics treatment effects. The Covid-19 pandemic mimic an exogenous shock to remote work transition, by using the Dingel & Nieman (2020) framework, each 3-digt SSYK-2012 occupational code is given a work from home feasibility score to construct the binary treatment variable. The panel covers 2014-2024 using real wages as the main outcome variable and proxy for productivity. WFH-feasible occupations experienced a positive, significant and growing real wage premium compared to non-WFH feasible occupations, rising from 1.64 percent in 2021 to 2.85 percent in 2024. The premium was entirely driven by male workers, who gained the positive effect of WFH feasibility in comparison to women. The findings provide a causal relationship in terms of a positive wage premium in WFH feasible occupation on a market characterized by centralized wage bargaining. A parallel trends violation in the gender interacted event study prevent the post-period coefficients to be given any causal interpretation though suggesting there are already structural different wage trajectories between male and female workers in WFH feasible occupations, rather than the wage differential originate from the remote work transition. A feature suggesting a shift to remote work cannot solely close the gender wage gap.