A Solution For Our Economy and Our Climate, Provided By a Pandemic
Disconnecting high-income jobs from urban centers could increase investment in economically distressed rural areas and reduce the massive amount of pollution caused by commutes.
The shrinking middle class in rural communities and human-caused climate change have been some of the most hot-button political issues of the 21st century. These problems, on the surface, seem to have solutions that address one issue while perpetuating the other, but another crises has shown this may not be the case. Before a global pandemic forced us all in our homes, this solution was one that lay on the sidelines — something that was coming in the future, but would take time to become the norm.
That solution is a drastic workforce shift away from offices and toward working remotely.
Entrenched cultural norms left this option off the table for years, with less than 1 in 5 people around the world working remotely full-time. In 2019, 44% of companies worldwide didn’t allow any remote work at all — not even for a day a week. However, now that the opportunity has been thrust before our eyes, it can’t be ignored.
Rural Economies and Climate Climate Change
Rural areas have historically been dominated by manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and mining — activities that significantly contribute to climate change through burning fossil fuels and damaging ecosystems. Between 2000 and 2014, America lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs, and the trend continued past that. Bringing back manufacturing jobs has been a top solution to rural job losses, but is only a short-term one, considering automation will likely overtake as many as 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030, once again.
One of our solutions to climate change includes moving closer to work to reduce our pollution due to commuter transit, which makes sense considering 85% of Americans still commute by car — try as we might to change habits and encourage public transit, walking and biking. This draws people into urban centers to pursue economic opportunities, further exacerbating disinvestment in rural communities. It also pushes lower-wage earners farther away from high-income opportunities, increasing wealth inequalities and raising demand for real estate in urban centers, driving up housing costs and reducing affordable housing stock near places where economic opportunity is most rich.
Both of these solutions to different (but intertwined) problems have the same basic assumption: Your economic opportunities are tied to your location. Therefore, increasing rural wealth means growing the type of job opportunities located in rural communities, and reducing commuter pollution requires being closer to where your job is located, resulting in siphoning people away from rural areas and into densely populated cities. But… what happens when economic opportunities are not tied to your location?
Imagine a world where people didn’t have to choose between living in affordable places and developing careers in high-income sectors because they could choose to work from anywhere. Opportunities are no longer tied to urban centers. Those living in rural communities could access new, traditionally urban high-income job opportunities and people who live in expensive urban centers could move to more affordable places, while cutting commuter pollution — and maybe even reducing housing costs in big cities.
Lessons From A Pandemic
The novel coronavirus has shown us that it is possible to have nearly two-thirds of Americans work from home. Though not every job can be done remotely 100% of the time, according to an April 2020 poll, at least 24% of all Americans can work remotely and 31% are retired, leaving 55% of American adults able to live anywhere they choose in a remote-work world.
During pandemic stay-at-home orders, large cities started to see blue skies thanks to reduced transportation and industry activity. Smog lifting around the world showed us what substantially cutting our emissions could look like — in Punjab, India, that meant seeing the Himalayan mountains from their homes for the first time. Major cities in the U.S. saw significant drops in pollutants between March 1 and April 5, 2020, too.
With many companies forced to abruptly close office doors, CFO’s are seeing the financial benefits of a remote workforce. Three our of four financial leaders said they were considering shifting a portion of their workforce to remote in a March 2020 survey— up to half of their workforce in some cases. The main drivers of this? Cost savings and a larger pool of hireable talent, since remote workers can be hired from anywhere.
Embracing remote work long-term could result in a litany of benefits for our economy and our environment. Disconnecting jobs from urban centers for as many jobs as possible could change American demographics, revitalizing disenfranchised rural areas with high-income opportunities while improving urban affordability through reduced housing demand. More remote workers could mean clearer skies and reduced traffic, improving the health of our planet and our people — poor air quality is linked to health issues such as lung disease, difficulty breathing and heart ailments.
Reinforcing Remote Opportunity With Remote Education
Just having more high-income remote jobs available doesn’t mean we will automatically see job applications from people who previously worked in manufacturing, or youth who had planned to so that they could remain in their communities. Remote jobs typically require higher-education to be a qualified applicant.
Remote higher education is already an increasing trend, but primarily for masters programs, with undergraduate programs following behind.
With more remote undergraduate programs , we can create new job pipelines that also lift up those in low-income households, both in rural and urban locations. Think about it: the traditional 4-year college environment requires students to move away from their homes, leave their jobs and pay additional costs for housing. This creates a systemic barrier for those in low-income households who may not be able to pay the added costs of living in a new city or state while studying — especially in the high-cost big cities where many of the top colleges are located. It also doesn’t allow for adult learners to continue working full-time while pursuing an undergraduate degree.
Though the number of students from low-income households attending colleges has increased, reaching an average of 20% in 2016, only 12% graduate college compared to the 60% of wealthy students who complete their undergraduate degrees. Maybe if college living were more economically sustainable, more lower-income students would graduate — remote schooling allows students to save money by living at home year-round and continuing to consistently work part-time throughout the year, rather than just in the summer.
We have to support rural communities through the shift toward automation with equitable access to higher education, so that when more jobs are lost in that sector, people are prepared to make the leap to new ones. Remote undergraduate education opportunities can do just that.
Looking Toward The Future of Work
There are a lot of fears around an increasingly remote workforce. Before we went remote to stop the spread of COVID-19, managers may have feared that their workers would be less productive and workers may have feared the monumental shift required when changing from an in-person to a remote office environment.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many to quickly adapt to this change, and it is no longer an elusive idea. Managers have experience with supporting their employees remotely, and know that they can remain equally (or more) productive than they were in the office. Workers have adapted to the digital work environment and are warming up to the idea of working from home.
Now, three in five U.S. workers would prefer to continue to work remotely once public health restrictions are lifted.
More remote work could partly address both shrinking rural economies and climate change by disconnecting opportunities from urban centers. It also opens the opportunity to enrich our lives with additional free time, giving us an extra 40 minutes to 3 hours per day to relax, sleep, learn something new or spend time with our families.
The opportunities are endless.
