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Work, Care and Gender during the COVID‐19 Crisis *
Author(s) -
Hupkau Claudia,
Petrongolo Barbara
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
fiscal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1475-5890
pISSN - 0143-5671
DOI - 10.1111/1475-5890.12245
Subject(s) - covid-19 , margin (machine learning) , earnings , inequality , demographic economics , economics , pandemic , work (physics) , job loss , labour economics , paid work , gender inequality , financial crisis , unemployment , economic growth , medicine , working hours , macroeconomics , finance , mathematics , mathematical analysis , pathology , virology , outbreak , computer science , engineering , machine learning , mechanical engineering , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
We explore the effects of the COVID‐19 crisis and the associated restrictions to economic activity on paid and unpaid work for men and women in the United Kingdom. Using data from the COVID‐19 supplement of Understanding Society, we find evidence that labour market outcomes of men and women were roughly equally affected at the extensive margin, as measured by the incidence of job loss or furloughing. But, if anything, women suffered smaller losses at the intensive margin, experiencing slightly smaller changes in hours and earnings. Within the household, women provided on average a larger share of increased childcare needs, but in an important share of households fathers became the primary childcare providers. These distributional consequences of the pandemic may be important to understand its inequality legacy over the longer term.