"We analysed 20 years of data from the national Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, which allowed us to track the work and mental health of more than 16,000 employees. We didn't include two years of the COVID pandemic (2020 and 2021), because people's mental health then could have been shaped by factors unrelated to working from home. The data allowed us to track people over time and examine how their mental health changed alongside their commuting patterns."
"For women, commuting time had no detectable effect on mental health. But for men, longer commutes were tied to poorer mental health for those who already had strained mental health. The effect was modest. For a man near the middle of the mental health distribution (close to the median), adding half an hour to his one-way commute reduced reported mental health by roughly the same amount as a 2% drop in household income."
Twenty years of HILDA Survey data tracking more than 16,000 Australian employees were used, excluding 2020–2021. Models adjusted for major life events such as job moves or the arrival of children. The focus was commuting time and working-from-home arrangements and whether effects differed by baseline mental health. Commuting time had no detectable effect on women's mental health. For men with already strained mental health, longer commutes were associated with poorer mental health, with a half-hour one-way increase equating to roughly a 2% household income reduction. Hybrid working showed the strongest positive effects for women.
Read at The Conversation
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