Gender and Labor Market after COVID

PAOLA PROFETA AND ALESSANDRA CASARICO, IN TWO SEPARATE STUDIES, SUGGEST THAT WOMEN ARE THE WORST HIT

Evidence from past economic crises indicates that recessions often have a greater impact on male-dominated sectors. But the Covid-19 lockdown may end up having a greater effect on women’s employment than men, according to two separate studies for the COVID Crisis Lab.
 
“Women’s Work, Housework and Childcare, before and during Covid-19” (2020, CEPR Covid Economics 28: 70-90) was carried out by Daniela Del Boca, Maria Cristina Rossi and Noemi Oggero (at Collegio Carlo Alberto & University of Turin) and Paola Profeta (Bocconi University & Dondena) using survey data collected in April 2020 from a representative sample of about 1,000 Italian women. The study analyzes jointly the effect of the emergency on working arrangements, housework and childcare of couples where both partners work. Results show that most of the additional workload of household chores from the lockdown falls on women, while childcare activities are more equally shared within the couple than housework.
 
In a family where both partners were working from home, 65% of women increased the amount of housework they did, while only 40% of men did so. In terms of childcare, the increase for men rose to 60%.
 
“If we consider that Covid increased the extra work for the family in terms of housework and childcare and most of it fell on women, we have a very high risk that female workplace participation could fall, and this is a big problem, because it is already quite low in Italy,” said Paola Profeta, Associate Professor of Public Economics, and coordinator of the Dondena Gender Initiative at the Dondena Research Center for Social Dynamics and Public Policy.
 
According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, Italy ranks 76 out of 153 countries in terms of gender equality. In “The Gendered Effects of COVID,” Associate Professor of Public Economics Alessandra Casarico and Salvatore Lattanzio (University of Cambridge) have two objectives: to evaluate how business closures impact female occupations, and to examine how public policy mediates the effects of the emergency on women’s work. This study is still underway, though it hints that the impact is higher for women workers because more of them are employed in sectors which were more harshly hit by the lockdown and which opened up later, when restrictions started being lifted, said Casarico.
“What was surprising is that men and women are equally involved in the essential sectors that were never locked down, but 72% of those returning to work first were men,” said Casarico, who is also member of the Dondena Research Center of Social Dynamics and Public Policy. In addition, it is young women aged below 30 who were kept out of the labor market the longest, with potentially negative consequences on their career prospects.

by Jennifer Clark