Italian Workers at Risk During the COVID-19 Epidemic

Teresa Barbieri, Gaetano Basso and Sergio Scicchitano ()

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, 2022, vol. 8, issue 1, No 7, 175-195

Abstract: Abstract We analyze the task-content of occupations operating in about 600 sectors of the economy with a focus on the dimensions that expose workers to contagion risks during the COVID-19 epidemic. We do so in the Italian context, leveraging extremely detailed and granular information from ICP, the Italian equivalent of O*Net (the survey that describes the task content of US occupations). We find that several sectors need physical proximity to operate, mainly in services and retail trade. Workers at risk of complications from COVID-19 (mainly males above the age of 50) are concentrated in sectors characterized by little physical proximity or where working from home is feasible. We then study the sectoral lockdowns put in place by the Italian Government in March 2020. We find that governmental restrictions hit the sectors where the risk of contagion in the workplace was more widespread: the effect is stronger for proximity to the public than that with co-workers. The share of workers who have the possibility to work from home is higher in sectors that were not forced to close. The evidence we provide is useful to identify which activities pose larger risks for contagion among workers in the workplace and where to reinforce safety measures.

Keywords: Working conditions; Working from home; COVID-19 epidemics; Safety; Crisis policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H12 I18 J28 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40797-021-00164-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: Italian workers at risk during the COVID-19 epidemic (2020)
Working Paper: Italian Workers at Risk During the Covid-19 Epidemic (2020)
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:spr:italej:v:8:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s40797-021-00164-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40797

DOI: 10.1007/s40797-021-00164-1

Access Statistics for this article

Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti is currently edited by Roberto Cellini

More articles in Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti from Springer, Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().