What makes partial-day teleworking different? A typology of workday types using the American Time Use Survey

Abstract:  

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote and hybrid work, heightening the need to understand how individuals
structure work, travel, and daily routines. Using nationally representative repeated cross-sectional data from the American Time Use
Survey (ATUS), this study operationalizes an intra-day typology distinguishing among commuting, full-day teleworking, and two
subtypes of partial-day teleworking: supplementing, when remote work is added outside standard hours, and substituting, when remote
work replaces part of an on-site workday. We compare time use and activity-travel behaviors across these groups in the pre-COVID
(2017-2019) and post-COVID (2022-2024) periods. Findings reveal distinct differences: commuting and supplementing days follow
conventional work rhythms, whereas substituting and full-day teleworking days exhibit greater temporal and spatial flexibility. The result
underscores the need to move beyond simplistic telework classifications. The proposed typology provides a behaviorally grounded
framework for analyzing evolving workday types and can inform future research, transportation planning, and labor policy.

Bio:

Patricia Mokhtarian is a Regents Professor and the Clifford and William Greene, Jr. Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2013, she served 23 years on the CEE faculty at the University of California, Davis, after spending several years in regional transportation planning and consulting. Prof. Mokhtarian has specialized in the study of attitudinal influences on travel behavior for more than 45 years. She is among the most highly-cited scholars in travel behavior research, with more than 43,000 citations and an h-index of 101 (Google Scholar). She gave the Deen Distinguished Lecture at TRB in 2018, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research in 2021, and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2024. Her PhD and MS in Industrial Engineering / Management Sciences are from Northwestern University, and her BA in Mathematics is from Florida State University.