Abstract
<p>The existing literature on flexible and remote work treats ‘voluntariness’ as a condition that separates arrangements which protect employee wellbeing from those that harm it. The concept of voluntariness, itself, is traditionally measured as a worker’s reported choice over the practice; this measure cannot clearly distinguish a choice which is made freely from a choice which is made because no other option was financially possible. This article focuses on advancing a theory adaptation. Drawing from self-determination theory (SDT), more specifically the difference it establishes between autonomy as volition rather than mere independence, and between autonomous and controlled motivation, it re-specifies voluntariness in the field of flexible work. The paper introduces the concept of economically foreclosed-choice flexibility, which is defined as an objective condition of the household option set rather than by how a worker feels, and goes on to propose that economic foreclosure transforms a formally chosen arrangement into a controlled one. Thus, it breaks the autonomy mechanism with which voluntary remote work is said to confer its benefits. The paper will follow three propositions, with the last one stating that protective effect estimates of voluntary remote work are biased upwards because the results combine a benefitting volitional group with a non-benefitting foreclosed group. The core argument of the paper identifies a population that the current measure cannot see, and it points out where, and for whom, the field’s headline conclusions require qualification.</p>