Human Meanings of Evolving Employment Geographies: Work-Place Captivity and Well-Being Dynamics

Abstract

A central tenet in social psychology is the importance of perceived control in the stress process; another focuses on the well-being implications of mismatches between preferred and actual arrangements. Integrating these perspectives and leveraging the pandemic-driven shift to remote work, we examine “work-place captivity,” the misalignment between employees’ actual and preferred work locations combined with feeling a lack of control over location. Applying mixed-effects models on nationally representative panel data (April 2021 to April 2022) of employees who worked from home at some point during the pandemic, we reveal heterogeneities in work-place captivity: Hispanic workers, those without a college degree, and on-site workers are more likely to experience it. We find considerable fluidity in work-place captivity over time. Both sustained and transitions into captivity predict declines in subjective well-being. This study contributes to understanding the links between structure and agency in times of organizational fluidity around the geography of work.