Millions have a sense that working from home has had a bit impact on society. The National Association of Home Builders pointed to economic research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and some analysis of its own, to shed some light, and some numbers, on the topic.

In the NERB paper, researchers at Stanford, Princeton, the University of Chicago, the ifo Institute in German, the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development surveyed people from 27 countries with controls for age, gender, education, and industry. The researchers used the U.S. mean as a baseline and controlled everywhere for age, gender, education, and industry, making six major observations.

"We find, first, that WFH averages 1.5 days per week in our sample, ranging widely across countries," they wrote. "Second, employers plan an average of 0.7 WFH days per week after the pandemic, but workers want 1.7 days. Third, employees value the option to WFH 2-3 days per week at 5 percent of pay, on average, with higher valuations for women, people with children and those with longer commutes."