The impact of Covid-19 on the Korean and US labour markets

Koangsung Choi, Francesco Renna and Chung Choe

Applied Economics, 2024, vol. 56, issue 38, 4529-4543

Abstract: This study compares labour market experiences in South Korea and the US at the outbreak of the pandemic and then again in November 2020. We found that the pandemic had the most considerable effect on the not-at-work rate in South Korea and the unemployment rate in the US. We computed concentration indices to measure inequality in the labour markets using education as a socioeconomic ranking variable. Applying a Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regression, we found that unemployment was more concentrated among less-educated workers in South Korea. Still, the not-at-work rate was more concentrated among highly educated workers. While the ability to work from home played an important role in explaining these inequalities, by November 2020, the Korean labour market showed minimal disparities. In general, US workers with lower education levels experienced higher unemployment and not-at-work rates. The capability to work remotely considerably reduced inequality in April, but it did not in November.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2023.2212966 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:applec:v:56:y:2024:i:38:p:4529-4543

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2023.2212966

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().