Gender and Employment in the COVID-19 Recession: Evidence on “She-cessions”

Download or read book Gender and Employment in the COVID-19 Recession: Evidence on “She-cessions” written by Mr. John C Bluedorn and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early evidence on the pandemic’s effects pointed to women’s employment falling disproportionately, leading observers to call a “she-cession.” This paper documents the extent and persistence of this phenomenon in a quarterly sample of 38 advanced and emerging market economies. We show that there is a large degree of heterogeneity across countries, with over half to two-thirds exhibiting larger declines in women’s than men’s employment rates. These gender differences in COVID-19’s effects are typically short-lived, lasting only a quarter or two on average. We also show that she-cessions are strongly related to COVID-19’s impacts on gender shares in employment within sectors.