Unintended Consequences of Lockdowns: Evidence from Domestic Helpers in Urban China

Xiaobo He and Fang Xiao
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Fang Xiao: School of Business, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai 201620, China

Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities, 2020, vol. 15, issue 4, 521-540

Abstract: This paper addresses the reactions of domestic helpers to the Wuhan (Hubei Province) lockdown that began on January 23, 2020. We use a novel dataset containing the information of over 40,000 Chinese domestic helpers registered on a leading professional website from November 2019 to June 2020. The results indicate a declining pattern of short-term labor supply of domestic helpers across 11 major Chinese cities, which shows an increase in the expected monthly wage of domestic helpers in these cities. More importantly, using a difference-in-difference (DID) model, this paper provides some evidence on the existence of labor market discrimination against domestic helpers born in Hubei Province due to employers¡¯ fear of infection.

Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19); pandemic; domestic helpers; urban; China; labor supply; expected wage; labor market; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J31 J44 J64 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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