On Sunday, June 21, 2026, The New York Times' Business Section proclaimed (by way of a headline) that "Remote Work Has Helped a Generation of Working Parents." The article attached to the headline was written by Claire Cain Miller, who writes articles for The Times on gender, families, and education.
On that very same date, Sunday, June 21, 2026, The Times' Opinion Section proclaimed (by way of a headline) that "We Liked Remote Work. Then We Looked at The Data." That article was jointly attributed to Emma Harrington and Natalia Emanuel, who are labor economists and authors of a forthcoming book, In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth.
Naturally, the information above prompts us to ask, "Well, which is it? Do we want to encourage remote work, or not?" I think each one of the articles I have linked are going to be available, even to non-subscribers, so you may want to read them both (as I did).
My own conclusion is that both articles hit on important truths about remote work. I have some personal experience, from one of my own family members, that being able to work remotely has, in fact, very significantly helped her with a young child at home. Claire Cain Miller is right on target in saying that the opportunity to work remotely has been of real assistance to that family member, a single mother with a pretty young child under her care.
Still, I think we would be pretty foolish to dismiss the findings (the "data") advanced by Harrington and Emanuel, as they urge us to make sure that remote work doesn't become a "default" reality for most workers. Here's what they say:
Both of us have experienced the advantages of remote work, especially when battling morning sickness or caring for a sick 6-year-old. But on some days, we wouldn’t venture outside or speak face-to-face with another human. We started to wonder whether we — along with the roughly 35 million other Americans who work from home — had stepped into an enormous social experiment. Was remote work as liberating as it felt?We searched for answers in troves of data, unsure of what we would find. Surveys of over half a million Americans from the last decade and a half revealed an uncomfortable truth: Despite its advantages, remote work has significantly deepened Americans’ isolation and distress. Our estimates, published in Science this month with our collaborator Amanda Pallais, indicate that remote work explains a third of the deterioration in mental health between 2011 and 2024. Our research doesn’t suggest that work can occur only in the office. But it does mean that employees and companies should make a greater effort to prioritize face-to-face time with colleagues (emphasis added).
Let me, once again, provide one of my favorite observations, as I continue to think about and write about politics, and society, and about how we can protect and recover the kind of democratic self-government that we just got through celebrating on the 250th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence. Here's my oft-repeated statement, once again:
We Are In This Together
We are, in fact, in this life together not only as we engage in politics, but as we "live," plain and simple. Our world is shared in common, and when we begin isolating ourselves, and begin finding ourselves isolated, things get worse for us - and for everyone.
I, particularly, am sorry that post-covid rules continue to be applied by many governmental bodies, including local city councils and boards of supervisors, which now hold their public meetings by way of Zoom calls, or by using similar technologies that allow and encourage us to access these meetings "remotely." What that means, as a practical matter, is that we are increasingly experiencing our relationship to our government as "observers." In fact, we're supposed to be running the place!
We need constantly to be in contact with other people, who often have different ideas and priorities. If we want to have a society (and a government) that brings us together, reconciling our differences, instead of exacerbating them, then we need real and compelling experience - personal experience - that is convincing of the following truth; namely, and.... here we go, again:
We Are Together In This!
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