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Nov 27 (Insider) If you’re working from home or in an empty office today, you can thank — or blame — a millennial.
In the great return-to-office battle, hybrid seems to have won out as the preferred mode of working for companies and workers alike. But some groups are making more appearances in the office than others.
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Across multiple datasets, one generation — millennials — disproportionately wants to work from home, Nick Bloom, a Stanford economist and a work-from-home expert, told Business Insider. People in their 20s typically want to be in the office three to four days a week to socialize and get mentorship — “and because home is often a cramped apartment share.”
Going into the office is a desire that crosses generational lines, unifying groups that aren’t often in alignment: Gen Zers, Gen Xers, and boomers.
“Folks in their 50s and above are more likely empty nesters and are used to decades of office work so also seem keen to be mostly office-based,” Bloom said. The big push for remote work comes from millennials: According to Bloom’s research alongside José Barrero and Steven Davis, work-from-home intensity — measured by the percent of paid full days worked from home — is highest among people in their 30s and early 40s.
Bloom chalks that up to this age cohort having younger kids, tending to live in larger houses, and facing “full lives” outside of work. His survey data similarly found that people with children work remotely at higher rates than their child-free peers.
It’s true that many millennials, especially those with younger children, made major changes during the pandemic’s reconfiguration of work. Low interest rates led to a spate of frenzied homebuying. Millennials, who the Great Recession previously left reeling, were all of a sudden winning the Great Resignation and, for some, making enough money to move up and out.
And move they did. Workers from age 30 to 39 — particularly those aged 30 to 34 — saw the distance they travel to work skyrocket the most compared to their pre-pandemic commutes, an analysis from Gusto and Stanford based on Gusto payroll data found. From 2018 to 2019, 30- to 34-year-olds were traveling 9.02 miles to work. From 2022 to 2023, that distance more than doubled.
That data paints a clearer picture of how remote work has created new segments of workers. It’s becoming increasingly clear that younger workers — many of whom have spent a stretch of their early careers or educations on Zoom — are lonely, want more mentorship, and prefer at least some in-person work. But the problem that Gen Zers face is that while they’re in the office, their bosses are often not.
And older workers who have spent decades in the office might also miss that face-to-face work. Charles Bond, a 62-year-old in Southern California, previously told Insider that he decided to retire early rather than work remotely. While he said it may be a boon for people with younger kids or for those who faced long commutes, it didn’t work for him — and he treasured the lifelong friendships he made from decades of in-person work.
Of course, remote work has been life-changing for some. Plenty of workers have told Insider that they quit their roles rather than return to the office. Even those who are going in are trying to retain their newfound flexibility — don’t expect to see white-collar workers in person on Fridays, or even on Mondays. Those who are full-time remote or are vying for the increasingly limited number of remote roles might have millennials to thank for their continued ability to work remotely.
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