Rewiring Civic Life: Working from Home and Volunteering — Longitudinal Evidence from the UKHLS, 2009–2023

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 4: Technology Use at Work

Abstract

This study examines whether and how WFH influences volunteering time, a form of civic engagement. Drawing on the Civic Voluntarism Model and theories of spatial embeddedness, I theorize that WFH may reshape volunteering through multiple mechanisms: by altering time resources, neighborhood cohesion and psychological well-being. Using 10 waves of UKHLS data (2009–2023) and employing hybrid fixed-effects models with bootstrap-based mediation analysis, I decompose between-person and within-person effects. Results show that individuals who work from home engage in more volunteering than those who do not, but between-person effects substantially exceed within-person effects. Mediation analyses reveal that work hours and work autonomy significantly mediate the WFH-volunteering relationship at both between- and within-person levels, while neighborhood cohesion and mental health show negligible effects. These findings suggest that WFH influences volunteering primarily through resource redistribution rather than spatial or psychological mechanisms. The study contributes theoretically by integrating individual and spatial perspectives on civic engagement, and methodologically by demonstrating how within-between decomposition clarifies the distinction between stable individual differences and within-person changes in observational panel data.

Author

• Ying Qu, Boston College