J22 - Time Allocation and Labor SupplyReturn

How well can a society and an economy face up to COVID-19 depends, among other factors, on how many jobs can be performed at home. Work from home has the potential to increase firms' productivity and quality of workers' lives regardless of COVID-19, but it can also create new challenges. In this paper, we estimate the share of Czech workers who could work from home, using detailed Czech labour force survey data and an internationally recognised occupational classification methodology. Overall, we apply in the Czech context a methodology developed by Dingel and Neiman and published by the Journal of Public Economics in 2020. Our results show that about one third of Czech workers can perform their jobs from home. This share is comparable with countries at similar per capita income levels and with the share of workers who worked from home in Czechia during COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. The ability to work from home is distributed unequally across sectors, regions and workers' education levels. Whereas around four fifths of workers in the financial or the information technology sectors can work from home, less than one in five workers in agriculture and culture can work from home. Most university-educated workers can work from home, but only one in ten workers with primary education can do so. About a half of the workers in Prague can work from home, while only about a quarter can do so in the rest of the Czech Republic.

The main object of this paper is to explain the significance of the key factors which determined the labour force of the Czech population in the period 1993 - 2002. These key factors are the age structure irregularities and the changes in the labour force participation rates by age. The first part is focused on the description of the demo- graphic development in the Czech Republic. The second one contains the analysis of the Czech labour force. The changes in the labour force participation rates by age had negative effect, while age structure irregularities had positive effect on labour supply in 1993 - 2002. But it is possible that in the near future the age structure will become worse because of the ageing of the Czech population. For this reason the expected demo-graphic development of the Czech population up to 2050 and its implications for future labour supply of the population are also discussed in this paper.