TELE · DOES IT PROMOTE ECONOMY AND WELL-BEING? THE IMPACT OF TELEWORKING ON ENVIRONMENT AND LABOUR MARKET OUTCOMES

DOES IT PROMOTE ECONOMY AND WELL-BEING? THE IMPACT OF TELEWORKING ON ENVIRONMENT AND LABOUR MARKET OUTCOMES

MAIN PROBLEMS AND ISSUES ADDRESSED This project explores the effects of teleworking on household production allocation, gender roles, environment and labour market outcomes. WHY IS IMPORTANT FOR THE SOCIETY Examining the effects of teleworking on gender roles or household-domestic production allocation, work to life conflict, and well-being can have very useful and beneficial suggestions and policy implications. • Employers are less likely to hire individuals whom they expect to have shorter or discontinuous working lives. Pregnancy, maternity period are the main factors create employment spells for women due to their greater responsibilities such as breastfeeding, childbearing/childrearing. • Teleworking may encourage a higher number of qualified and skilled women interested in splitting time more equitably between work and family. • Since one of the main aims of policy makers and society is the improvement of the well-being of the citizens, teleworking may be another option which leads to work-family life balance and thus in higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction. • Improving the air quality, teleworking may have a beneficial impact on the environment and public health. OVERALL OBJECTIVES The first aim of the project is to examine the relationship between job satisfaction, employee loyalty and various types of flexible employment arrangements, and the association between firm performance and flexible employment in UK. The flexible employment arrangements include teleworking, compress hours and flexible working hours. The second objective is to explore the effects of teleworking on job satisfaction and employee loyalty. The second aim of the project is to examine the effects of teleworking on traffic congestion and the environment improvement-in this case air pollution. Through teleworking, people connect by phone or video or over the web instead of commuting or taking a business trip which generates time saving, alleviation in traffic congestion, and therefore reduction of air pollution. Regarding time saving, teleworking can improve the productivity of workers by reducing the stress derived by traffic congestion and commuting time and increasing their job satisfaction. For instance, companies may want to factor the air pollution and climate protection benefit into teleworking programs to help meet community needs to reduce traffic congestion. Applying teleworking, the traffic congestion can be reduced, traffic accidents can be avoided, pressure on transportation infrastructure can be relieved and energy use can be saved resulting to regional air quality improvement and protection of the climate. The third aim of the project is to examine the relationship between teleworking, gender roles and happiness of couples and to explore whether the spouse, and especially whether women teleworkers are happier when their partner is teleworker. We explore the intra-household domestic production allocation among couples that telework and those who do not.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union