Monitoring COVID-19-Induced Gender Differences in Teleworking Rates Using Mobile Network Data

Grubanov-Boskovic, Sara; Spyratos, Spyridon; Iacus, Stefano Maria; Minora, Umberto; Sermi, Francesco

doi:10.6339/22-JDS1043

Journal of Data Science

Monitoring COVID-19-Induced Gender Differences in Teleworking Rates Using Mobile Network Data

Volume 20, Issue 2 (2022), pp. 209–227

Sara Grubanov-Boskovic Spyridon Spyratos Stefano Maria Iacus All authors (5)

https://doi.org/10.6339/22-JDS1043

Pub. online: 20 April 2022 Type: Data Science In Action

Open Access

Received
10 February 2022

Accepted
29 March 2022

Published
20 April 2022

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a sudden need for a wider uptake of home-based telework as means of sustaining the production. Generally, teleworking arrangements impact directly worker’s efficiency and motivation. The direction of this impact, however, depends on the balance between positive effects of teleworking (e.g. increased flexibility and autonomy) and its downsides (e.g. blurring boundaries between private and work life). Moreover, these effects of teleworking can be amplified in case of vulnerable groups of workers, such as women. The first step in understanding the implications of teleworking on women is to have timely information on the extent of teleworking by age and gender. In the absence of timely official statistics, in this paper we propose a method for nowcasting the teleworking trends by age and gender for 20 Italian regions using mobile network operators (MNO) data. The method is developed and validated using MNO data together with the Italian quarterly Labour Force Survey. Our results confirm that the MNO data have the potential to be used as a tool for monitoring gender and age differences in teleworking patterns. This tool becomes even more important today as it could support the adequate gender mainstreaming in the ‘Next Generation EU’ recovery plan and help to manage related social impacts of COVID-19 through policymaking.

Supplementary material

Supplementary Material

1. model.R: This is the R code used to run the model, plot the variable importance and the teleworking predictions by region and gender.

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2022 The Author(s). Published by the School of Statistics and the Center for Applied Statistics, Renmin University of China.

Open access article under the CC BY license.

Keywords

coronavirus gender equality homeworking mobility

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