Introduction to Parental Labor Supply Responses to School Disruptions: New Cross-National Comparisons

Richard V. Burkhauser, Dean R. Lillard and Joseph J. Sabia

Journal of Labor Economics, 2026, vol. 44, issue S1, S1 - S16

Abstract: This special issue uses harmonized, individual-level panel data to study how COVID-19 school closures affected labor supply of parents of school-age children in Canada, Germany, Russia, Korea, Sweden, Australia, and China. Using comparable measurement and a generalized difference-in-differences approach—including triple-differences estimates and estimators that account for heterogeneous and dynamic treatment effects—we conclude that, overall, despite vastly different societal contexts, parents worldwide and American parents responded to school closures similarly (Hansen et al. 2026. J. Human Resources 61, no. 4:1295). As schools closed, mothers, but not fathers, substituted time away from the labor market and toward childcare.

Date: 2026
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