Rural–Urban Gaps in Working From Home During COVID ‐19

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic exposed and intensified the long‐standing geographic divide in access to digital infrastructure and flexible work arrangements. Using 25 months of data from the Current Population Survey (May 2020–May 2022), this study examines how working from home (WFH) due to the pandemic differed between rural and urban workers and whether these differences varied by employment characteristics and industry. We find a large and persistent rural–urban WFH gap due to the COVID‐19 pandemic that remains even after accounting for worker, job, household, and contextual factors. Full‐time workers, wage workers, and those employed in high‐WFH industries were more likely to work remotely overall. However, rural workers in these categories were less likely to WFH. Interaction models and predicted probabilities show that rural full‐time workers experienced less pandemic‐related WFH than their urban counterparts, and the rural–urban gap in Finance was slightly more pronounced than expected based on rurality or industry alone. Patterns among the self‐employed showed a consistent rural disadvantage. These findings suggest that broadband access is necessary but not sufficient for enabling remote work in rural areas; the structure of rural labor markets also limits the feasibility of WFH. Documenting both the persistence and variation in this pandemic‐specific rural WFH gap shows how digital infrastructure and job composition jointly shaped remote work opportunities during the pandemic.