One of the key changes to our daily lives brought about by the COVID pandemic was, for those able to do so, working from home. According to UK data, almost 60% of people were working fully or partially from home between April and June 2020.
And it’s becoming increasingly apparent that for many people, home working is here to stay. Between September 2022 and January 2023, 16% of working adults in the UK reported working fully from home, and 28% working partially from home. This compares with roughly 5% working fully from home and 9% working partially from home in 2018.
My colleagues and I wanted to understand how home working correlated with mental health and social wellbeing during the pandemic. In a recent study, we found that home working was not detrimental to mental health in the early stages of the pandemic, but was associated with negative effects later on.
