Varieties of telework regimes across European regions: A tale of four different worlds

Abstract

Telework emerged in the 1980s as a new form of organising work, and the share of employees working from home has slowly grown since. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns, the prevalence of telework has significantly increased across all EU countries. However, beneath the surface of common trends, there is significant variation between European countries in terms of policy responses and the prevalence of telework. This paper aims to increase understanding of cross-country diversity on telework across Europe through an exploratory analysis, which aims to categorise and group countries that share relevant patterns in terms of their telework regimes. Drawing on institutionalist comparative employment relations literature, we define a telework regime as a constellation of environmental aspects, workplace practices and rules that affect each other and frame employers’ and employees’ choices regarding flexible work arrangements. To identify key components of such regimes, we review the literature on those three analytical dimensions that could be useful to classify and group countries across Europe. The operationalisation of theoretical constructs relies on novel indicators for measuring telework rules. Then we carry out principal component analysis to identify empirically relevant factors and perform cluster analysis to identify groups of countries that rely on specific telework regimes. Our empirical results largely align with previous industrial relations and working time regime typologies but also show new country divisions, which reveal the existence of specific telework regimens beyond general industrial relations systems.