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

Gender and Employment in the COVID-19 Recession: Evidence on “She-cessions”
Author: Mr. John C Bluedorn
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2021-03-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513575929

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.

Women and Recession (Routledge Revivals)

Women and Recession (Routledge Revivals)
Author: Jill Rubery
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2010-10-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 113683804X

Originally published in 1988, this book compiles a collection of works investigating the impact of recession on women's employment. The authors argue that the most important explanation of differences in women's experience between the countries is the form of labour market regulation and organisation. They point out that current changes in these forms of regulation, and not displacement of female labour, pose the main threat to any gains that women have made in the labour market in the post- World War II period.

This Time It's Different

This Time It's Different
Author: Titan M. Alon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2020
Genre: COVID-19 (Disease)
ISBN:

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, we analyze the causes and consequences of this phenomenon. We 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. We analyze the repercussions of this trend using a quantitative macroeconomic model featuring heterogeneity in gender, marital status, childcare needs, and human capital. Our 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.

Global Women's Work

Global Women's Work
Author: Beth English
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351713477

This volume considers how women are shaping the global economic landscape through their labor, activism, and multiple discourses about work. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of international scholars, the book offers a gendered examination of work in the global economy and analyses the effects of the 2008 downturn on women’s labor force participation and workplace activism. The book addresses three key themes: exploitation versus opportunity; women’s agency within the context of changing economic options; and women’s negotiations and renegotiations of unpaid social reproductive labor. This uniquely interdisciplinary and comparative analysis will be crucial reading for anyone with an interest in gender and the post-crisis world.

From Mancession to Shecession

From Mancession to Shecession
Author: Titan Alon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2021
Genre: COVID-19 (Disease)
ISBN:

We examine the impact of the global recession triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic on women's versus men's employment. Whereas recent recessions in advanced economies usually had a disproportionate impact on men's employment, giving rise to the moniker "mancessions," we show that the pandemic recession of 2020 was a "shecession" in most countries with larger employment declines among women. We examine the causes behind this pattern using micro data from several national labor force surveys, and show that both the composition of women's employment across industries and occupations as well as increased childcare needs during closures of schools and daycare centers made important contributions. While many countries exhibit similar patterns, we also emphasize how policy choices such as furloughing policies and the extent of school closures shape the pandemic's impact on the labor market. Another notable finding is the central role of telecommuting: gender gaps in the employment impact of the pandemic arise almost entirely among workers who are unable to work from home. Nevertheless, among telecommuters a different kind of gender gap arises: women working from home during the pandemic spent more work time also doing childcare and experienced greater productivity reductions than men. We discuss what our findings imply for gender equality in a post-pandemic labor market that will likely continue to be characterized by pervasive telecommuting.

Working Women in Recession

Working Women in Recession
Author: Roderick Martin
Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1984
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Women's Employment and the Capitalist Family

Women's Employment and the Capitalist Family
Author: Ben Fine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2002-01-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134889186

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Gendering the Recession

Gendering the Recession
Author: Diane Negra
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 541
Release: 2014-03-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822376539

This timely, necessary collection of essays provides feminist analyses of a recession-era media culture characterized by the reemergence and refashioning of familiar gender tropes, including crisis masculinity, coping women, and postfeminist self-renewal. Interpreting media forms as diverse as reality television, financial journalism, novels, lifestyle blogs, popular cinema, and advertising, the contributors reveal gendered narratives that recur across media forms too often considered in isolation from one another. They also show how, with a few notable exceptions, recession-era popular culture promotes affective normalcy and transformative individual enterprise under duress while avoiding meaningful critique of the privileged white male or the destructive aspects of Western capitalism. By acknowledging the contradictions between political rhetoric and popular culture, and between diverse screen fantasies and lived realities, Gendering the Recession helps to make sense of our postboom cultural moment. Contributors. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Hamilton Carroll, Hannah Hamad, Anikó Imre, Suzanne Leonard, Isabel Molina-Guzmán, Sinéad Molony, Elizabeth Nathanson, Diane Negra, Tim Snelson, Yvonne Tasker, Pamela Thoma