Work, Care and Gender during the COVID-19 Crisis

Research on Work, Care and Gender during the COVID-19 Crisis, has been conducted by Claudia Hupkau (CUNEF) and Barbara Petrongolo (University of Oxford)

In the article and the working paper, the authors explore the effects of COVID-19 and the associated restrictions to economic activity on both paid and unpaid work in the United Kingdom. Using data from the COVID-19 supplement of Understanding Society, the authors argue that labour market outcomes of men and women were mostly equally affected at the extensive margin, as measured by the incidence of job loss or furloughing. However, women suffered smaller losses at the intensive margin, experiencing slightly smaller changes in hours and earnings. At the household level, women provided 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 COVID-19 pandemic may help understand its inequality legacy over the longer term.

 

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