Gender Inequality in Paid and Unpaid Work During Covid-19 Times

Jennifer Graves, Yarine Fawaz, Lídia Farré and Libertad González
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Lidia Farre and Libertad Gonzalez

No 1188, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We employ real-time household data to study the impact of the pandemic lockdown on paid and unpaid work in Spain. We document large employment losses that affected more severely low-skilled workers and to some extent college educated women. We show that the pandemic resulted in an increase in the gender gap in total hours worked, including paid and unpaid work. This is due to the smaller decrease in paid work hours among women that was not compensated by a smaller increase in unpaid work. We also examine the impact of the lockdown on within-household specialization patterns. We find that while men slightly increased their participation in home production, the burden continued to be borne by women, irrespective of their labor market situation. This evidence suggests that traditional explanations cannot account for the unequal distribution of the domestic workload. Additional analysis supports gender norms as a plausible explanation for our findings.

Keywords: labor market; gender; childcare; COVID-19; household work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (105)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Gender Inequality in Paid and Unpaid Work During Covid‐19 Times (2022)
Working Paper: Gender inequality in paid and unpaid work during Covid-19 times (2021)
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