(She)cession: The Colombian female staircase fall

Karen García-Rojas (), Paula Herrera-Idárraga, Leonardo Morales (), Natalia Ramírez-Bustamante () and Ana Tribin
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Karen García-Rojas: Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadísticas
Natalia Ramírez-Bustamante: Universidad de los Andes

Borradores de Economia from Banco de la Republica de Colombia

Abstract: This article seeks to analyze the Colombian labor market during the COVID-19 crisis to explore its effect on labor market gender gaps. The country offers an interesting setting for analysis because, as most countries in the Global South, it has an employment market that combines formal and informal labor, which complicates the nature of the pandemic's aftermath. Our exploration offers an analysis that highlights the crisis's effects as in a downward staircase fall that mainly affects women compared to men. We document a phenomenon that we will call a "female staircase fall." Women lose status in the labor market; the formal female workers' transition to informal jobs, occupied women fall to unemployment, and the unemployed go to inactivity; therefore, more and more women are relegated to domestic work. We also study how women’s burden of unpaid care has increased due to the crisis, affecting their participation in paid employment. **** RESUMEN: Este artículo busca analizar el mercado laboral colombiano durante la crisis de COVID-19 y el efecto de esta crisis sobre las brechas de género. Colombia ofrece un escenario interesante para el análisis porque, como la mayoría de los países del Sur Global, tiene un mercado laboral que combina trabajo formal e informal, lo que complica las secuelas de la pandemia. Nuestra exploración ofrece un análisis que destaca los efectos de la crisis en términos de una caída de escalera descendente que afecta principalmente a las mujeres. En el trabajo documentamos un fenómeno de "caída de escalera femenina". Muchas mujeres pierden estatus en el mercado laboral; hay una marcada transición de trabajadoras formales a empleos informales, las mujeres ocupadas en empleos formales e informales caen al desempleo y las desempleadas pasan a la inactividad; en consecuencia, cada vez más mujeres se ven relegadas al trabajo doméstico. Finalmente, estudiamos cómo ha aumentado la carga de las mujeres en cuidados no remunerados debido a la crisis, lo que ha afectado su participación en el empleo remunerado.

Keywords: Gender gap; informality; employment; time use; Colombia; COVID-19; brecha de género; informalidad; empleo; uso del tiempo; Colombia; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 E24 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-iue, nep-lam, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdr:borrec:1140

DOI: 10.32468/be.1140

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