Did Covid-19 disproportionately affect mothers’ labor market activity?

Aaronson, Daniel; Hu, Luojia; Rajan, Aastha

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Did Covid-19 disproportionately affect mothers’ labor market activity?

Abstract: School and day care center restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic have presented enormous challenges to parents trying to juggle work with child-care responsibilities. Still, empirical evidence on the impact of pandemic-related child-care constraints on the labor market outcomes of working parents is somewhat mixed. Some studies suggest the pandemic had no additional impact on the labor supply of parents, while other studies show not only that it did but that the negative impact was disproportionately borne by working mothers.

Keywords: COVID-19; labor force participation; labor supply; childcare; Economics of Gender;

JEL Classification: J13; J16; J20;