Heterogeneous Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Crisis and Implications for Inequality in Japan

Shinnosuke Kikuchi, Sagiri Kitao and Minamo Mikoshiba

Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)

Abstract: We study how the COVID-19 crisis could affect earnings inequality across heterogeneous individuals in Japan. We use the Employment Status Survey (ESS) to identify groups of individuals who are more vulnerable to the COVID-19 shocks, which likely affect workers in different industries, occupations, and employment types in different magnitude. We assess the impact using various data and early evidence including expenditures data from the JCB Consumption NOW during the first weeks of the pandemic. Our study identifies significant heterogeneity in vulnerability to the COVID-19 shocks across workers of different types. We find that the crisis will hit low-income groups by more and is likely to significantly exacerbate inequality through multiple channels, calling for urgent and large-scale assistance targeted towards affected individuals.

Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2020-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/20e039.pdf (application/pdf)

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:eti:dpaper:20039

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion papers from Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by TANIMOTO, Toko ().