How Working from Home Affects Job Satisfaction: Shedding Light on the Mechanisms*

Abstract

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of people began working from home, and this form of work will remain important. However, there is no consensus how working from home a ects workers' job satisfaction. This paper provides novel insights into the mechanisms through which working from home a ects job satisfaction. We use data from an online survey of part-time students and graduates of professional colleges in Switzerland in 2021. We nd that working from home increases job satisfaction on average. We investigate the relative importance of ve mechanisms. We nd that the positive association between working from home and job satisfaction is mainly due to increasing productivity and making work more interesting. In contrast, our ndings indicate that the worse work-life balance resulting from working from home and more di cult interactions with coworkers and supervisors have a negative e ect on job satisfaction. Working from home has a smaller e ect on job satisfaction for employees whose intensity of working from home remains the same as before the pandemic. This di erence mainly stems from diminished productivity and interestingness of work mechanisms. At the same time, we nd hints that the negative mechanisms of worsening work-life balance may also diminish in the long run