Gender and employment in the COVID-19 recession: Cross-Country evidence on “She-Cessions”

Abstract

Early evidence on the pandemic's effects pointed to women's employment falling disproportionately, leading observers to call a “she-cession.” This paper documents the extent and persistence of this phenomenon in a sample of 38 advanced and emerging market economies. We show that there is a large degree of heterogeneity across countries, with about two-thirds exhibiting larger declines in women's than men's employment rates. These gender differences in COVID-19′s effects were typically short-lived, lasting a quarter or two on average. We also show that she-cessions are strongly related to COVID-19′s impacts on gender shares in employment within sectors.