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This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession (WP-20-39)

Titan Alon, Matthias Doepke, Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, and Michèle Tertilt

In recent US recessions, employment losses have been much larger for men than for women. Yet, in the current recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the opposite is true: unemployment is higher among women. In this paper, the researchers analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. They argue that women have experienced sharp employment losses both because their employment is concentrated in heavily affected sectors such as restaurants, and due to increased childcare needs caused by school and daycare closures, preventing many women from working. The authors analyze the repercussions of this trend using a quantitative macroeconomic model featuring heterogeneity in gender, marital status, childcare needs, and human capital. Their quantitative analysis suggests that a pandemic recession will i) feature a strong transmission from employment to aggregate demand due to diminished within-household insurance; ii) result in a widening of the gender wage gap throughout the recovery; and iii) contribute to a weakening of the gender norms that currently produce a lopsided distribution of the division of labor in home work and childcare.

Titan Alon, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California San Diego

Matthias Doepke, HSBC Research Professor of Economics and IPR Associate, Northwestern University

Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, Department of Economics, Northwestern University

Michèle Tertilt, Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim

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