The Impact of COVID-19 on Women’s Employment: Evidence from China

Authors

  • Dong Zhou Department of Cultural Industry and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
  • Langchuan Peng Institute of Economics and Finance, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, China
  • Shouer Chen Department of Cultural Industry and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58567/eal02010008

Keywords:

COVID-19, Employment, Gender differences, Difference-in-differences

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of COVID-19 on women’s employment and gender disparity with a longitudinal dataset spanning the pandemic. We exploit the regional intensities of social vulnerability and temporal variation to implement the difference-in-differences (DID) estimation. The results indicate that the pandemic and its associated lockdowns generate a significant and negative impact on women’s employment but not on men’s employment. Moreover, a counterfactual analysis using pre-pandemic data further supports the causal nature of the documented relationships. The evidence suggests that economic downturns caused by public health emergencies, unlike previous economic recessions, have a greater impact on women, and differentiated policies should be designed.

References

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Published

2023-05-12

How to Cite

Zhou, D., Peng, L., & Chen, S. (2023). The Impact of COVID-19 on Women’s Employment: Evidence from China. Economic Analysis Letters, 2(1), 57–63. https://doi.org/10.58567/eal02010008

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Article

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Dong Zhou, Langchuan Peng, Shouer Chen

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.