Gender and employment in the COVID-19 recession: Evidence on “she-cessions”
Bluedorn, John C. ; Caselli, Francesca G. ; Hansen, Niels-Jakob H. ; Shibata, Ippei ; Tavares, Marina M.
IMF - Washington, DC
2021
24 p.
women workers ; gender ; economic recession ; epidemic disease
IMF Working Paper
WP/21/95
Gender equality & Women
English
Bibliogr.
"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."
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