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Abstract
Working from home (WFH) has expanded persistently since the COVID-19 pandemic, yet whether it relaxes labour-supply constraints or instead intensifies work remains unclear. We study this question using the 2023 wave of the German SocioEconomic Panel (SOEP), which uniquely records both realised and desired working hours in the post-pandemic period, and instrumenting realised WFH with prepandemic occupational WFH feasibility. We find that WFH increases both realised and desired labour supply for women, while for men it raises realised hours but leaves desired hours unaffected. The gender divergence points to distinct mechanisms. For women, the increase in desired hours is consistent with WFH relaxing time-coordination constraints between market work and home production. For men, the rise in realised hours without a corresponding increase in desired hours is more consistent with work intensification. Our findings suggest that remote work converts previously unrealised labour supply preferences into realised hours among workers constrained by household responsibilities, with important implications for gender equality and labour shortages in ageing economies.