Crashing without a Parachute: Racial and Educational Disparities in Unemployment during COVID-19

Bradley Hardy, Charles Hokayem and Stephen Roll

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2021, vol. 698, issue 1, 39-67

Abstract: The burden of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been shouldered equally by American families. Black and Hispanic communities have been hit the hardest, with the pandemic often exacerbating existing disparities. Using nationally representative data, we assess the economic and public health effects of the pandemic among different socioeconomic groups and whether typical sources of protection from economic insecurity are uniformly protective across the U.S. population. Within these sociodemographic groups, we also explore differences by education and industry. We find higher levels of employment loss among Blacks and Hispanics, those without college degrees, and frontline workers. We also find evidence that individuals and families are facing mental health episodes and are turning to costly alternative financial strategies to cope throughout the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; employment; economic instability; demographic disparities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162211069429 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:698:y:2021:i:1:p:39-67

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211069429

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().