The authors study employment outcomes during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in eight countries with different case levels and policy responses: the United States, Australia, France, Denmark, Italy, South Korea, Spain, and Sweden. While the share of people not at work increased in all countries, safety net policies seem to influence whether people remained employed (but absent from work) versus unemployed or left the labor force. The authors find large employment decreases among middle-educated and young workers, increasing disparities in countries with the largest labor market declines. A variety of evidence suggests that labor demand was likely a larger driver of employment declines than labor supply and that stringent social distancing policies were sufficient to reduce employment even in the absence of high cases. Lastly, job characteristics - the importance of face-to-face interactions and the ability to work remotely - were closely related to labor market outcomes, with these relationships being stronger in countries with more cases.
Authors
Robert Breunig, Wei Cheng, Laura Montenovo, Kyoung Hoon Lee, Bruce A. Weinberg, Yinjunjie Zhang
- Acknowledgements & Disclosure
- Weinberg is grateful for support from U01AG076549. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3386/w33029
- Pages
- 63
- Published in
- United States of America
Table of Contents
- Introduction 1
- Background 5
- Related Literature 5
- The Pandemic and Policy Responses 7
- United States 8
- Australia 9
- South Korea 10
- European Countries: Italy, Denmark, Spain, France, and Sweden 11
- Data 14
- Variable construction 14
- Data Description by Country 16
- US Data 16
- Korean Data 16
- Australia Data 17
- European Data 17
- Occupational indices 18
- COVID-19 and Share of People Not-at-Work 19
- Aggregate Changes in Labor Market Outcomes 20
- Differential Effects by Demographic Characteristics 22
- Age 23
- Educational attainment 25
- Differences for Females and Males 26
- Children and Marital Status 27
- Occupation Indices and Labor Market Outcomes 29
- Conclusion 32
