Work from Home and Disability Employment
2026-05-27
There has been a dramatic rise in disability employment since the pandemic, while work from home (WFH) has risen fourfold. This paper asks whether the two are causally related. Controlling for compositional changes and labor market tightness, a 1 percentage point increase in WFH increases full-time employment by 1.0 percent for individuals with a physical disability. The postpandemic increase in working from home explains 68–85 percent of the rise in full-time employment. Wage data suggest that WFH increased the supply of workers with a physical disability, likely by reducing commuting costs and enabling better control of working conditions. (JEL I12, J14, J22, J28, J81)