Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

Please send your paper by e-mail: zU.1^a2j\XB&bh'uQp+Yn|LECyA]#[rE{wHPt[=I~vV!zd3y|Qwb-7Lj* 

Please send 2 files:

(1) the main text without the title of the article and the authors (DOC/DOCX file) and

(2) the title page including: the title of the paper, the authors and their affiliation (DOC/DOCX file).

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Number of Results 7

WP(38/2026)532. The Digital Shift: Working From Home and the Educational Gradient in Fertility Rates

Authors: Osiewalska Beata, Neels Karel, Matysiak Anna
The expansion of working from home (WFH) has transformed paid work, but access to remote-workable jobs remains strongly stratified by education. We examine how regional WFH availability is associated with fertility among women with different educatio…

WP532. The Digital Shift: Working From Home and the Educational Gradient in Fertility Rates

The expansion of working from home (WFH) has transformed paid work, but access to remote-workable jobs remains strongly stratified by education. We examine how regional WFH availability is associated with fertility among women with different educational levels in Belgium. We link Belgian population register data (2001–2019) with regional WFH indicators from the Labour Force Survey and estimate discrete-time birth hazards, followed by microsimulation of aggregate fertility patterns. Higher WFH availability is associated with lower first-birth risks at younger ages across educational groups, with later recuperation only among highly educated women. For second and higher-order births, WFH availability is generally associated with higher birth risks, especially among the highly educated. Microsimulation shows that these parity-specific associations produce only modest changes in total fertility and the educational gradient. WFH therefore appears less as a universal reconciliation resource than as a stratified labour-market change with parity-specific fertility implications.


Osiewalska Beata, Neels Karel, Matysiak Anna
working from home remote work fertility educational gradient parity progression microsimulation register data Belgium

WP(18/2025)481. The Role of Working-From-Home for Maternal Employment Re-Entry after Childbirth

Authors: Kurowska Anna, Matysiak Anna, Osiewalska Beata
This study investigates how work-from-home (WFH) —by mothers and their male partners—shapes maternal employment re-entry after childbirth. Drawing on Conservation of Resources and Boundary Management theories, the study distinguishes betw…

WP481. The Role of Working-From-Home for Maternal Employment Re-Entry after Childbirth

This study investigates how work-from-home (WFH) —by mothers and their male partners—shapes maternal employment re-entry after childbirth. Drawing on Conservation of Resources and Boundary Management theories, the study distinguishes between WFH access and regular use. It hypothesizes that regular WFH use by mothers and their partners supports earlier and full-time maternal return to paid work, particularly among second-time mothers. The UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2019) is used to estimate discrete-time hazard models of return to paid work after first and second births, distinguishing between full-time and part-time re-entry. Among first-time mothers, both WFH access and regular use are associated with a greater likelihood of full-time re-entry, though not with overall return. Among second-time mothers, regular pre-birth WFH use significantly increases the likelihood of returning to paid work—regardless of hours—whereas access alone does not. No significant associations are found between male partners’ WFH and maternal employment outcomes.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2025.18.481
Kurowska Anna, Matysiak Anna, Osiewalska Beata
childbirth flexibility remote work return to work telework work from home United Kingdom

WP(8/2024)444. Work from Home and Perceptions of Career Prospects of Employees with Children

Authors: Kurowska Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka
This study explores how various work and family-related contexts moderated the link between work-from-home (WFH) and self-perceived changes to the career prospects among employees with children after over a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue tha…

WP444. Work from Home and Perceptions of Career Prospects of Employees with Children

This study explores how various work and family-related contexts moderated the link between work-from-home (WFH) and self-perceived changes to the career prospects among employees with children after over a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the link between WFH and the perception of changes to one’s career prospects is likely to differ depending on gender, occupation, whether the employee has worked from home before the pandemic, how much time their children spent at home due to pandemic restrictions and the cohabiting status of the parent. We conducted fixed effects multinomial regression models using a unique multi-country dataset, including representative samples of parents with dependent children from Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the US. Employees with children who had prior experience with WFH before the pandemic were more likely to report improved career prospects than those who worked solely in the office. The positive effect of WFH for newcomers to the world of remote work was less unequivocal and varied based on occupation and gender. We also find that the presence of children at home and the cohabitation status substantially moderate the link between WFH and perceived changes to one's career prospects, with different implications based on the employee's gender. We fill the research gap by showing how fluid workers perceptions of career prospects depend on varying professional (prior experience with WFH and occupation) and personal (increased family demands) situations. This study also indicates the need for context-sensitive career management in organisations.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2024.8.444
Kurowska Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka
career prospects family gender work from home remote work

WP(29/2023)436. WP 29(436) Work from home and perceived changes to work-life balance among mothers and fathers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Kurowska Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka, Kaufman Gayle
Better access to work from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic offered parents the possibility to accommodate increasing childcare needs, but at the same time it led to an unprecedented scale of workers performing paid and care work  si…

WP436. WP 29(436) Work from home and perceived changes to work-life balance among mothers and fathers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Better access to work from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic offered parents the possibility to accommodate increasing childcare needs, but at the same time it led to an unprecedented scale of workers performing paid and care work  simultaneously. The overall effects of WFH on work-life balance (WLB) during the pandemic are thus not clear. In our study we argue that three important moderators alter the positive relationship between WFH on perceived changes to WLB during the pandemic: i) time that children spent at home due to the pandemic, ii) change in parent’s working hours during the pandemic and iii) presence of a partner in the household. We place particular interest in gender differences for these effects. We use unique data from the Familydemic Survey, conducted between June and September 2021, on a representative sample of 9,364 mothers and fathers living with at least one child aged less than 12 in six countries (Canada, Italy, Germany, Poland, Sweden and the US). We find evidence showing that WFH was positively related to perceived change in WLB among mothers and fathers, regardless of partnership status. However, the positive effect was weaker among those mothers whose child(ren) stayed at home due to childcare closures for longer than a month. The positive relationship among mothers disappeared if women increased their working hours during the pandemic. In addition, we found a negative relationship between WFH and WLB among fathers who increased their working hours during the pandemic. We also provide evidence that mothers (compared to fathers), parents whose children were out of childcare for six months or more (compared to other parents) and parents who increased their working hours  (compared to other parents) were more likely to report worsened work-life balance during the pandemic.


Kurowska Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka, Kaufman Gayle
remote work work-life balance childcare working hours

WP(1/2023)408. Gender and family perspectives on the uptake of ICT-induced home-based work

Authors: Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Matysiak Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka
This article examines how men and women exploited the work location flexibility enabled by ICT in the context of their family obligations prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We use the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey for 30 European countries and…

WP408. Gender and family perspectives on the uptake of ICT-induced home-based work

This article examines how men and women exploited the work location flexibility enabled by ICT in the context of their family obligations prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We use the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey for 30 European countries and estimate a set of multinomial logistic regression models, with the dependent variable measuring the frequency of home-based work. We find that when using ICT at work, men were more likely to work from home, both occasionally and more frequently whereas women were more likely to engage in sporadic home-based work but less likely to do so frequently. These results are particularly true for parents, except for single mothers of young children. As single mothers cannot rely on partners’ support in combining paid work and care, the advantages of home-based telework (time savings, flexible time organization) outweigh the negative consequences of this work arrangement.


Cukrowska-Torzewska Ewa, Matysiak Anna, Kasperska Agnieszka
family gender home-based telework ICT use remote work teleworkers

WP(31/2022)407. Working from Home and Employee Perception of Career Prospects in Europe: the Gender and Family Perspectives

Authors: Kasperska Agnieszka
This article examines the relationship between work from home and perceived career prospects for employees from 29 European countries, considering gender and family perspectives. The indicators of career prospects pertain to advancement prospects, jo…

WP407. Working from Home and Employee Perception of Career Prospects in Europe: the Gender and Family Perspectives

This article examines the relationship between work from home and perceived career prospects for employees from 29 European countries, considering gender and family perspectives. The indicators of career prospects pertain to advancement prospects, job visibility, and rapport with a supervisor and colleagues. Multilevel modelling was applied to the cross-sectional data of the European Working Conditions Survey which was merged with the country-level Family Policies Sub-Index to grasp the potential moderating effect of national contexts. The findings indicate positive relationships between work from home and career prospects for men both fathers and non-fathers, and rather negative relationships for women, especially for mothers. Higher provision of work-family reconciliation measures and the prevalence of work from home are associated with better career prospects reported by both men and women. Varying relationships for different work from home frequencies are observed, with workers who work from home less frequently reporting better career prospects.


Kasperska Agnieszka
career prospects family gender promotion remote work working from home

WP(13/2022)389. When are women who work from home more likely to have children?

Authors: Osiewalska Beata, Matysiak Anna, Kurowska Anna
We examine the timely yet severely under-researched interplay between the opportunity to work from home and childbearing. According to previous research, home-based work (HBW) may both facilitate and jeopardise work-family balance, depending on famil…

WP389. When are women who work from home more likely to have children?

We examine the timely yet severely under-researched interplay between the opportunity to work from home and childbearing. According to previous research, home-based work (HBW) may both facilitate and jeopardise work-family balance, depending on family and work circumstances. Following this research, we develop a theoretical framework on whether and under which conditions HBW may facilitate fertility. We perform random-effect logistic regression on UK Household Longitudinal Survey 2009-2019 data and consider a set of potential moderators related to woman’s family and work context. Our findings suggest that HBW can indeed help certain women have children, but only those who live far from their offices or want to combine paid work and care but receive little support from their partners. This is not the case for other women, likely because HBW entails higher expectations toward workers to perform more housework, leads to more multitasking and may have negative consequences for women’s work careers.


Osiewalska Beata, Matysiak Anna, Kurowska Anna
fertility childbearing home-based work remote work work flexibility
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