Individuals with a disability have remarkably low employment rates compared to the rest of the population. This column examines whether the rapid rise in the ability to work from home post-pandemic has improved disability employment. The authors estimate that in the US working from home has already increased full-time disability employment levels by over a quarter of a million people. Given population ageing, the longer-run impact could be far larger as more working Americans acquire disabilities as they age. Hybrid and fully remote working could increase labour supply in North America by perhaps a million or more, with similar gains possible in Europe.
Nicholas Bloom, Gordon B. Dahl and Dan-Olof Rooth
10 May 2025
Vox EU
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/working-home-boosted-growth-expanding-disability-employment
This work is published under POID and the CEP's Growth programme.