IdEP Seminar, Arnaud Chevalier - "When Parents Work "

This paper estimates the causal effect of parental right to work from home (WfH) on their children’s educational attainment. Using administrative data from the Netherlands and firm-specific information on collective agreements, we find that children whose parents gain the right to WfH improve their scores at a high- stake exam by 0.09 of a standard deviation. This results in a 4 percentage points upswing in qualifying for a general or academic track. Additionally, we link the collective agreement data to the labor force survey, and find that change in WfH policies are associated with a 15 percentage points increase in WfH propensity, but no changes in other labor market outcomes. These results highlight the large potential benefits of remote work in supporting families and their children.

Arnaud Chevalier
Professor of Economics Royal of Holloway, University of London