 US employment inequality in the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemicEuropean Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, 2021, vol. 18, issue 2, 223–239 Abstract: This article compares inequality in employment across demographic groups in the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. We develop a measure to capture both how much employment declines during a recession and the persistence of employment losses. Results show a significant shift of job loss from men in the Great Recession to women in the COVID-19 lockdown. White workers fare better than other racial/ethnic groups in both recessions. Black and Hispanic women are hit especially hard in the COVID-19 pandemic. With our job-loss measure, less-educated workers had modestly worse outcomes in the Great Recession. However, during COVID-19, less-educated workers suffer much more severe employment consequences than more-educated groups. We discuss long-term effects of employment inequality and how these findings are relevant to debates about policy responses. Keywords: employment; unemployment; inequality; Great Recession; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:ejeepi:v:18:y:2021:i:2:p223-239 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention is currently edited by Torsten Niechoj More articles in European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention from Edward Elgar Publishing |
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