Exploring how worthwhile the things that you do in life are during COVID-19 and links to well-being and working from home

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the way we work and live, with working from home becoming more than the occasional desire but a regular feature of work and life. While an increasing number of research studies have promoted the virtues of what is often described as the positive unintended consequences of the pandemic, there are also downsides, especially during periods of imposed restrictions on the ability to get out and about, that have broadly been described as impacting mental health and life’s worth. In this paper we use data collected in New South Wales during September 2020 and June 2021, seven and 16 months after the pandemic began, to obtain an understanding of the extent to which the pandemic has impacted on how worthwhile things done in life are for workers. We investigate whether there is a systematic behavioural link with working from home, reduced commuting linked to distance to work, and various socio-economic characteristics. The evidence suggests that the opportunity to have reduced commuting activity linked to working from home and increased perceived work-related productivity have contributed in a positive way to improving the worth status of life, offsetting some of the negative consequences of the pandemic.