Teleworking: a key issue of our time
Telework is one of the most important legacies of the pandemic. Following its massive use dictated by the stay-at-home policies imposed around the world, remote jobs are now more than four times pre-pandemic levels in many of the world’s major economies. Given this evolution of telework, many analysts predict that it will grow further and become increasingly important to our lives, generation after generation. How we will govern these new forms of work will depend on the answers that research will be able to provide to whether, for whom, and how telework affects people’s quality of life and well-being.
Teleworking and well-being: an international study
We study the relationship between telework and well-being using a mixed-methods approach. An international, interdisciplinary team will collect quantitative and qualitative data on teleworkers in Switzerland, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, providing new insights into this field of study. The research spans economics, sociology, family studies and health psychology, which focuses on how social and psychological factors influence people’s quality of life.
Why social relationships matter
We use Social Network Analysis for the first time in telework research. We collect data on 3200 personal networks of teleworkers in these four European countries. We create a large database of workers’ contacts, testing hypotheses regarding the impact of working from home on social support, conflicts, interruptions and control mechanisms. In doing so, this project sheds light on the mechanisms linking telework and well-being with a specific focus on social relations, contributing to a further understanding of how telework is changing people’s lives.
Teleworking: a key issue of our time
Telework is one of the most important legacies of the pandemic. Following its massive use dictated by the stay-at-home policies imposed around the world, remote jobs are now more than four times pre-pandemic levels in many of the world’s major economies. Given this evolution of telework, many analysts predict that it will grow further and become increasingly important to our lives, generation after generation. How we will govern these new forms of work will depend on the answers that research will be able to provide to whether, for whom, and how telework affects people’s quality of life and well-being.
Teleworking and well-being: an international study
We study the relationship between telework and well-being using a mixed-methods approach. An international, interdisciplinary team will collect quantitative and qualitative data on teleworkers in Switzerland, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, providing new insights into this field of study. The research spans economics, sociology, family studies and health psychology, which focuses on how social and psychological factors influence people’s quality of life.
Why social relationships matter
We use Social Network Analysis for the first time in telework research. We collect data on 3200 personal networks of teleworkers in these four European countries. We create a large database of workers’ contacts, testing hypotheses regarding the impact of working from home on social support, conflicts, interruptions and control mechanisms. In doing so, this project sheds light on the mechanisms linking telework and well-being with a specific focus on social relations, contributing to a further understanding of how telework is changing people’s lives.
Impacts of remote work on individuals' well-being
Research team
Mattia Vacchiano
University of Geneva
Mattia Vacchiano is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He was SNSF Senior Research at the University of Lausanne (2018-2021) and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Buenos Aires (2016). His research focuses on work and everyday life as a source of inequality. He analysed issues related to psychological health, life trajectories and careers, especially among young people. His main theoretical and methodological expertise is social capital theory and social network analysis.
Stephanie Steinmetz
University of Amsterdam
Associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, she currently holds an ERC consolidator Grant. Her main research inter- ests are web survey methodology, gender inequalities and comparative labour market research. She is a member of the EU- founded COST Action 'WEBDATANET: Web-based data collection - methodological challenges, solutions and implementa- tions' and the Dutch eHumanities group.
Melanie Arntz
ZEW
Melanie Arntz is Deputy Head of ZEW’s Research Unit “Labour Markets and Social Insurance" and Leibniz Professor of Labour Economics at Heidelberg University. Her research focusses on how changing labour market conditions, such as an increasing digitalization of work tasks and the proceeding international division of production processes, affects employment and wage outcomes. She is coordinator of the research area “Digitalisation and Structural Change” and has a long record of research projects and research-oriented policy consulting. She has been appointed to the Labour Council of the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in 2022.
Eric Widmer
University of Geneva
Eric Widmer is professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of Geneva. His long-term interests include intimate ties, family and other interpersonal relations, life course research and social networks. Eric Widmer has developed an approach to families as configurations and has been conducting over the years a series of empirical research on couples, siblings, blended families and mobile families.
Koorosh Massoudi
University of Lausanne
Koorosh Massoudi is an associate professor of lifelong career development at the University of Lausanne. He is director of the Master’s teaching program in career counselling and vocational psychology, and a researcher in the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES). His activities focus on the study of the challenges of contemporary careers and their impact on workers’ health and employability. Moreover, he collaborates with public institutions and private organizations, aiming at the dissemination and implementation of scientific knowledge at the workplace.
Nicola Cianferoni
SECO
PHD in Socioeconomics, he is specialized in working conditions in the public and private sectors. He is author of the "Working in retail. Will the working day become a social issue again?" (Editions Seismo, 2019) as well as several scientific publications. As a scientific collaborator in the Labour and Health Section of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) he has addressed issues related to teleworking, health and work schedule. He is a member of the editorial team of the journal Les Mondes du Travail.
Manal Azzi
Internation Labour Organization
PhD in Occupational Safety and Health Policy, since 2004 she has been working as an health officer in the LABADMIN/OSH branch at the ILO. This entails work in the area of health promotion including the prevention of stress, in addition to using the world of work as a platform for the promotion of healthy behaviors. She has also worked on delivering OSH management systems in the workplace and promoting the ILO conventions 155 and 187 to develop policies and programmes and strengthen national systems on OSH including inspection mechanisms in numerous countries.
Sander Junte
AUB
Sander Junte is PhD of the Sociology program at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research interest orbit in the field of sociology of work. Current and previous research projects focused on the impact of digitalization of work on labour conditions and the regulation of technology from a comparative industrial relations-framework.
Oscar Molino Romo
AUB
Associate Professor at Autonomous University of Barcelona, he holds a master degree in Economics at Pompeu Fabra University (1998) and a PhD in Social and Political Science at the European University Institute (EUI-Florence). After working as research assistant at the Robert Schuman Centre, he has been government of Ireland post-doctoral researcher at the Industrial Relations and Human Re- sources Group, University College Dublin (2005-2007) and ICREA Researcher at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. He has taught courses on industrial relations and sociology of work in Europe.
Stéphane Cullati
University of Geneva
Dr. Stéphane Cullati is Senior Lecturer in epidemiology and a public health. He has published more than seventy articles, book chapters and books in collaboration with scholars in Europe and around the world dealing with a wide range of public health issues. He participates in this project as President of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS). ESHMS will support the project by disseminating the results through its channels and by organizing a dedicated workshop at the next biennial conference.
Research team
Mattia Vacchiano
University of Geneva
Mattia Vacchiano is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He was SNSF Senior Research at the University of Lausanne (2018-2021) and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Buenos Aires (2016). His research focuses on work and everyday life as a source of inequality. He analysed issues related to psychological health, life trajectories and careers, especially among young people. His main theoretical and methodological expertise is social capital theory and social network analysis.
Stephanie Steinmetz
University of Amsterdam
Associate professor at the University of Amsterdam, she currently holds an ERC consolidator Grant. Her main research inter- ests are web survey methodology, gender inequalities and comparative labour market research. She is a member of the EU- founded COST Action 'WEBDATANET: Web-based data collection - methodological challenges, solutions and implementa- tions' and the Dutch eHumanities group.
Eric Widmer
University of Geneva
Eric Widmer is professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of Geneva. His long-term interests include intimate ties, family and other interpersonal relations, life course research and social networks. Eric Widmer has developed an approach to families as configurations and has been conducting over the years a series of empirical research on couples, siblings, blended families and mobile families.
Melanie Arntz
ZEW
Melanie Arntz is Deputy Head of ZEW’s Research Unit “Labour Markets and Social Insurance" and Leibniz Professor of Labour Economics at Heidelberg University. Her research focusses on how changing labour market conditions, such as an increasing digitalization of work tasks and the proceeding international division of production processes, affects employment and wage outcomes. She is coordinator of the research area “Digitalisation and Structural Change” and has a long record of research projects and research-oriented policy consulting. She has been appointed to the Labour Council of the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in 2022.
Manal Azzi
Internation Labour Organization
PhD in Occupational Safety and Health Policy, since 2004 she has been working as an health officer in the LABADMIN/OSH branch at the ILO. This entails work in the area of health promotion including the prevention of stress, in addition to using the world of work as a platform for the promotion of healthy behaviors. She has also worked on delivering OSH management systems in the workplace and promoting the ILO conventions 155 and 187 to develop policies and programmes and strengthen national systems on OSH including inspection mechanisms in numerous countries.
Nicola Cianferoni
SECO
PHD in Socioeconomics, he is specialized in working conditions in the public and private sectors. He is author of the "Working in retail. Will the working day become a social issue again?" (Editions Seismo, 2019) as well as several scientific publications. As a scientific collaborator in the Labour and Health Section of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) he has addressed issues related to teleworking, health and work schedule. He is a member of the editorial team of the journal Les Mondes du Travail.
Koorosh Massoudi
University of Lausanne
Koorosh Massoudi is an associate professor of lifelong career development at the University of Lausanne. He is director of the Master’s teaching program in career counselling and vocational psychology, and a researcher in the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES). His activities focus on the study of the challenges of contemporary careers and their impact on workers’ health and employability. Moreover, he collaborates with public institutions and private organizations, aiming at the dissemination and implementation of scientific knowledge at the workplace.
Oscar Molino Romo
AUB
Associate Professor at Autonomous University of Barcelona, he holds a master degree in Economics at Pompeu Fabra University (1998) and a PhD in Social and Political Science at the European University Institute (EUI-Florence). After working as research assistant at the Robert Schuman Centre, he has been government of Ireland post-doctoral researcher at the Industrial Relations and Human Re- sources Group, University College Dublin (2005-2007) and ICREA Researcher at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. He has taught courses on industrial relations and sociology of work in Europe.
Sander Junte
AUB
Sander Junte is PhD of the Sociology program at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research interest orbit in the field of sociology of work. Current and previous research projects focused on the impact of digitalization of work on labour conditions and the regulation of technology from a comparative industrial relations-framework.
Stéphane Cullati
University of Geneva
Dr. Stéphane Cullati is Senior Lecturer in epidemiology and a public health. He has published more than seventy articles, book chapters and books in collaboration with scholars in Europe and around the world dealing with a wide range of public health issues. He participates in this project as President of the European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS). ESHMS will support the project by disseminating the results through its channels and by organizing a dedicated workshop at the next biennial conference.
