Less grooming and more chores: How life changes when you work from home

Canadians who work from home are saving over an hour every day in commute time and teleworking has improved their sleeping and eating patterns, a new Statistics Canada report has found.

The national statistics agency on Wednesday released highlights from its 2022 Time Use Survey, which includes data on the effects of telework on Canadians. The percentage of Canadians working from home rose from seven per cent in 2016 to 24 per cent in 2022.

The report said teleworkers saved over an hour, on average, by not having to commute on the days that they worked from home. In contrast, non-teleworkers commuted 63 minutes a day on average.

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Teleworkers tended to use their time saved from working from home to balance unpaid housework. Working from home was associated with about 16 more minutes, or 21 per cent more time spent on unpaid housework, compared with non-teleworkers on paid workdays.

The report found a gender gap when it comes to unpaid housework, with women consistently doing more than men, even when both worked from home.

For parents, teleworking was also associated with more time spent caring for children. Both fathers and mothers who worked from home spent about 71 minutes more per day actively caring for, supervising, or being with their children, compared with parents who did not telework.

However, mothers spent an average of 52 minutes more with children than fathers, regardless of whether they worked from home, the report found.

The report also said remote work was having an impact on people’s sleeping habits. The study found that teleworkers slept for 23 minutes more than non-teleworkers.

The absence of a commute also meant teleworkers had more time for leisure. Teleworkers spent about 30 minutes more in leisure activities than non-teleworkers. This included more time in active leisure activities, such as exercising or hobbies, as well as passive leisure activities, such as watching television.

However, teleworkers spent half the amount of time on personal care as non-teleworkers — 24 minutes less than non-teleworkers. The report said this could be due to lower pressure on teleworkers to spend time on activities like grooming.

While the number of people working from home has gone down since pandemic highs, Robert Kavcic, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets, told Global News it’s likely here to stay for many.

Occupancy rates in many downtown cores in Canada are still below pre-pandemic levels, he notes, adding that hybrid work is also looking like a long-term trend.

“It seems like on average, if you aggregate everything, all the industries and different job types, it seems like about three days a week is about the norm in the office right now.”

Kavcic said this could have an impact on where people live and real estate values.

“The ability to work on a hybrid basis is a major benefit to housing affordability, because it allows people to stretch out further from the core of the big cities and realistically tap into real estate that in the past, they wouldn’t be able to do if they had to commute downtown every single day of the week.”