Don’t write off remote work just yet.
Even as companies like Amazon, AT&T, and JPMorgan mandate five-day office returns, work-from-home setups are poised to grow, a new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests.
The findings show that people work remotely more often when employed at firms founded after 2015 than at those founded before 1990 — and at firms led by CEOs under 30.
This means future generations of workers could have greater flexibility, said Jose Maria Barrero, one of the researchers behind the study. Leading remote work expert Nick Bloom was also involved.
“As older companies die and new companies start up, and as older senior executives start retiring and they get replaced by younger ones, that should make more of the labor force be in these remote work-friendly firms,” said Barrero, who is a finance professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
Another takeaway from the study applies to the present: The younger the company and the younger the CEO, the better an employee’s chances of working in sweatpants.
“If it’s very important for you to have this sort of flexibility, you are more likely to get that if you look for jobs at young firms with young CEOs,” said Barrero. The same goes for jobs at established firms with young CEOs, though it’s more common for young firms to have young CEOs than for established firms, he added.
A generational divide
The study that Barrero co-authored is based on monthly surveys of 8,000 US residents ages 20-64 taken throughout 2025.
It finds that startups less than a decade old are more likely to allow hybrid or fully remote work, in part because the technology required to support such arrangements was readily available when they were founded. Many companies that launched around 2020 also began operating remotely out of necessity due to the pandemic.
“Their organizational culture, the way they interact, the way they set up their workflows, is going to be suited to a much more work-from-home-friendly world,” said Barrero.
Older firms, by contrast, often face higher costs when changing long-standing routines.
“Imagine a conglomerate that has been around for decades, with people going to the office five days a week,” said Barrero. “Their organizational culture is built around being in the office physically together.”
Paper Planes
Twenty-nine-year-old Georgia Oliver, cofounder and CEO of the all-remote marketing firm Paper Planes, used to have a three-hour daily commute while working in corporate strategy at Amazon in New York.
“I resented it,” she said. “I ended up doing less work than I would at home.”
Now viewing the matter from an employer’s perspective, Oliver told Business Insider that in-office mandates limit hiring options and opportunities to serve clients in a range of markets. Paper Plane’s 12-person staff is spread across the US, Europe, and Asia.
“We measure contribution through delivery and results, not hours at a desk,” said Oliver.
‘It’s just what I’m used to’
Of course, not all older CEOs are opposed to remote work. Young company leaders may be more inclined to embrace it, since they’ve logged fewer years in office-first environments, said Barrero.
Max Albert, a 29-year-old founder and CEO of an all-remote startup, can relate. Before launching Adrenaline Interactive, an ad tech company, in 2024, he briefly worked in an office from 9-to-5 as a software engineer for Ford Motor. Then the pandemic set in. He’s been remote — and on a flexible schedule — ever since.
“It’s just what I’m used to,” he told Business Insider. “I have trouble sitting at a desk for eight hours straight.”
Albert said he does see value in teams spending time together to build camaraderie. That’s why he and his six employees — who live in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Michigan — get together once a quarter for a company retreat, mixing work and entertainment.
“It feels like an adventure,” said Albert, adding that he doesn’t have a permanent address and lives out of Airbnb rentals.
Age isn’t the only factor
Companies’ and CEOs’ ages aren’t the only factors shaping employers’ likelihood of supporting remote work, the study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows. Jobs that can be done entirely online — common in professional services, finance, and tech — are also more likely to be remote, Barrero said.
There are exceptions. Some employers require everyone on-site, even when only certain roles require a physical presence. Barrero said they likely do this to avoid perceptions of special treatment.
Overall, though, the data collected from the study shows age is a significant factor. Employees work from home at younger firms almost twice as often as at established firms.
“Recent data collected by the same group of researchers showed work-from-home rates were only declining very gradually between 2023 and 2025,” said Barrero. “This new study suggests that in five or 10 years, they may start to rise again.”
