Webinar | Telework and the Great Relocation: Myth or Gradual Shift?

New Cross-Continental Evidence on Households and Firms’ Intention to Move

📅 Friday 30 October 2026 | 14:00–16:00 CET | Online

To mark World Cities Day, WinWin4WorkLife organised a webinar exploring how telework influences the relocation intentions of households and firms, drawing on evidence from different European regions and North America.

The widespread adoption of telework has sparked debate about its potential to reshape cities and regions by reducing the constraints imposed by daily commuting. But does greater flexibility over where we work translate into a greater willingness to move?

The webinar examined both intentions to relocate and preferences for alternative locations among households and single-establishment firms, using stated preference experiments. Bringing together perspectives from Europe and North America, it explored how these relationships vary across geographical and economic contexts.

Speakers

• João de Abreu e Silva and Fesseha Fentahun Belay – Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
• Khandker Nurul Habib – University of Toronto, Canada.
• Anisa Fauzi Ratnasari – Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Luxembourg.

Discussant

• Qin Zhang – Technical University of Munich, Germany.

Preliminary findings

The research suggests that telework’s effects on relocation intentions are nuanced and relatively small. For households, residential preferences, attachment to existing locations, life stage and household composition remain important. For firms, economic sector and preferences for proximity to other businesses also shape location decisions.

These preliminary findings call for caution when interpreting telework as a direct driver of large-scale relocation. They highlight the need for policies and planning approaches that account for the different, and sometimes counterintuitive, ways households and firms respond to flexible working arrangements.