Gendered Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 7, 2022 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Matthias Doepke, Northwestern University
The Gendered Effects of COVID-19 on Time Use and Academic Research Productivity
Abstract
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent counter-measures, such as school closures, shift to working from home, and social distancing are disrupting economic activity around the world. As with other major economic shocks, there will likely be winners and losers, leading to increased inequality across certain groups. In this project, we investigate the effects of COVID-19 on the gender gap in productivity among academics. First, we track the patterns of publications and working paper series submissions of male and female authors before and after COVID-19, performing a simple difference-in-difference analysis to see whether the trends diverge after COVID-19. Second, we conduct a broad survey of academics across various disciplines to collect more nuanced data on the respondents’ circumstances, such as spouse employment, the number and age of children, and time use. We find that female academics, particularly those who have young children, experienced a disproportionate reduction in time spent on research relative to comparable men and women without children. Second, we investigate the impact this disruption in time use had on the gender gap in productivity as measured by submissions to working paper series and peer review journals. This project constitutes an important contribution to the study of the far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still more importantly, it has the potential to put a spotlight on the fragility of our societal institutions whose collapse may wipe out decades of progress made toward gender equality. Our findings will also have important policy implications. For example, some academic institutions are offering generous tenure clock extensions due to COVID-19, and our research would shed light on the winners and losers of that policy.The Impact of Covid-19 on Women’s Employment in Developing Countries
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in the deepest global recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In most high-income countries, the pandemic recession has resulted in an unusually large impact on women in the labor market, driven in part by the sectoral distribution of employment losses and in part by childcare needs during closures of schools and daycares. In this paper, we provide evidence on how the pandemic recession has affected working women in a set of developing countries, and discuss potential long-run consequences for gender equality in the labor market. Some of the factors affecting women’s employment in rich countries are equally important elsewhere, such as the role of increased childcare needs during the pandemic. Important differences arise from the role of work in the informal sector and a lack of effective social insurance systems. The depth and duration of the pandemic itself is another source of differences, with a smaller initial impact on most developing countries but also a more drawn-out recovery. For both the immediate impact and long-run consequences, we point to the role of employment flexibility. In rich countries, expanded job flexibility, primarily in the form of working from home, helped protect women’s employment during the crisis and brings the prospect of lower gender inequality in the post-pandemic new normal. In many developing countries there is less evidence for increased job flexibility, which suggests that gender gaps in the labor market are likely to widen during the crisis and beyond.COVID-19, Job Loss, and Intimate Partner Violence in Peru
Abstract
We collect retrospective panel survey data on household socioeconomic status and domestic conflict from a large nationwide sample in Peru and find a sizable and sustained increase in intimate partner violence (IPV) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The incidence of physical IPV increased by an estimated 56% from 2019 to April/May 2020, and the increase was sustained until July/August 2020, the latest data point collected in our survey. Households most likely to lose a job experienced the largest increases in IPV over the period, measured by variation in the level of job loss across occupations. These patterns suggest that part of the increase in IPV was a causal effect of income shocks created by the COVID-19 pandemic.Discussant(s)
Emily Leslie
,
Brigham Young University
Alicia Sasser Modestino
,
Northeastern University
Olga Stoddard
,
Brigham Young University
Jessica Leight
,
International Food Policy Research Institute
JEL Classifications
- J1 - Demographic Economics
- J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor