The effect of working from home on commuting duration: Evidence for Lisbon metropolitan area

According to the Portuguese Labour Force Survey (PLFS), in the first quarter of 2024, 17.9% of the total workforce in Portugal and 32.1% in Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) worked from home at least once per week. We use longitudinal microdata for residents in the LMA from the PLFS to study the relation between working from home (WFH) and one-way commuting duration. Worker-level regressions for the period between the second quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2024, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, suggest that compared with non-WFH workers, working from home 1 day per week is associated with a 4.9% increase in commuting duration. The estimated effect rises to 8.8% for 2 days per week and is around 6% for 3 and 4 days per week. These findings hold even after carrying out different robustness checks.