COVID-19 and the Employment Gender Gap

Taiyo Fukai, Masato Ikeda, Daiji Kawaguchi and Shintaro Yamaguchi ()
Additional contact information
Masato Ikeda: University of Tokyo
Shintaro Yamaguchi: University of Tokyo

No 14711, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected female employment in Japan. Our estimates indicate that the employment rate of married women with children decreased by 4 percentage points, while that of those without children decreased by only 1 percentage point, implying that increased childcare responsibilities caused a sharp decline in mothers' employment. Further, mothers who left or lost their jobs appear to have dropped out of the labor force even several months after school reopening. In contrast to women, the employment rate of married men with children was not affected, which hindered progress in narrowing the employment gender gap.

Keywords: labor force participation; employment; gender gap; COVID-19; childcare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J13 J16 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68 pages
Date: 2021-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen, nep-isf and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published as 'COVID-19 and the employment gender gap in Japan' in: Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2023, 68, 101256.

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Working Paper: Covid-19 and the Employment Gender Gap (2021)
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