More than a She recession

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has been defined as a She-recession because of its disproportionate impact on female employment by contrast to past recessions defined as Man-recessions, for the usual disproportionate impact on men. The roots of the She-recession can be however traced back to the persistence of gender asymmetries both intra-household and extra-household in the labour market, a phenomenon known as feminization. This paper aims at measuring and explaining the gender differences in the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the Italian labour market from a macroeconomic perspective. We measure the duration, depth, and diffusion of the Covid-19 crisis on job losses, structural unemployment, and inactivity. We find that the impact of the Covid-19 crisis has been more than proportional for women, especially for low-educated female workers and for those working in the South during 2020.