We’re five years past the pandemic, yet the debate over remote work shows no signs of cooling down.
Major corporations—including Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan, and Uber—have doubled down on in-office mandates, requiring employees to show up five days a week. Meanwhile, tech giants like Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft have settled on hybrid models, typically demanding three or four office days. But many workers are pushing back—not with formal protests, but with quiet acts of defiance: arriving late, leaving early, “coffee badging” (swiping in just long enough to log attendance), raiding office snack stashes, or even working remotely while technically “in the office”—a stealthy practice dubbed “hushed hybrid.” Burned-out managers, stretched thin and exhausted, often turn a blind eye.
A new study from researchers at Harvard University, Brown University, and UCLA reveals just how deeply workers value remote flexibility: they’re willing to accept a staggering pay cut to keep it.
“On average, individuals are willing to forgo approximately 25% of their total compensation for a job that is otherwise identical but offers partial or full remote work instead of being fully in-person,” write the study’s authors—Zoë Cullen (Harvard), Bobak Pakzad-Hurson (Brown), and Ricardo Perez-Truglia (UCLA).
To illustrate: if a candidate received two offers—one for $200,000 requiring five days in the office, and another for $150,000 with full remote flexibility—they’d likely choose the latter, accepting a $50,000 pay reduction, according to Perez-Truglia in an interview with *The Wall Street Journal*.
New insights from the research
The team gathered survey data between May 2023 and December 2024 through a field experiment with Levels.fyi, a platform that tracks detailed compensation data for tech professionals. Their dataset included real job offers and the choices candidates ultimately made—factoring in total pay, job location, and remote-work options. They also incorporated Glassdoor employer ratings alongside cost-of-living and quality-of-life metrics.
While the preference for remote work isn’t new, the magnitude of the trade-off is. Previous studies significantly underestimated how much workers would sacrifice for flexibility. “Our estimate is three to five times higher than earlier findings,” the researchers note, attributing the discrepancy to improved methodology.
This trend is echoed elsewhere. A May LinkedIn survey of 4,000 U.S. workers found that 32% across all generations—and nearly 40% of Gen Z and millennials—would accept lower pay for greater location flexibility. Similarly, recruiting firm Robert Half reported this year that when salary negotiations stall, many employers sweeten the deal with remote or hybrid options to close the hire.
Flexibility as currency
Laura Roman, a senior talent acquisition manager at London-based marketing firm Up World, shared a telling example in an April LinkedIn post: one candidate accepted a £7,000 (roughly $9,300) pay cut to secure a fully remote role.
“The founder was skeptical at first,” Roman wrote. “She couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly take less money. But then it clicked: they were offering something just as valuable as a higher salary—for that candidate, at least: flexibility.”
“Not everyone can afford to trade income for flexibility,” she added, “but for those who can, it’s increasingly a no-brainer.”
Theresa L. Fesinstine, founder of HR advisory firm Peoplepower.ai, told *Fortune* she’s seen candidates accept 5% to 15% less compensation in exchange for remote arrangements. “There’s an unspoken exchange rate between flexibility and pay,” she said, “and for some, it’s worth a significant tradeoff”—especially for those prioritizing work-life balance or cutting commuting costs.
But not everyone’s on board
Not all workers see this trade as fair. In response to a Harvard Business School study showing 40% would take at least a 5% pay cut to work from home, one Reddit user pushed back this year:
> “So I keep working from home, and they slash my pay by 20%? Meanwhile, the company saves on office space—rent, electricity, water, snacks—and doesn’t even cover my internet or phone. Absolutely not.”
For many, the idea of bearing the full cost of remote work while seeing their paycheck shrink—while employers reap the savings—feels less like a choice and more like a raw deal.