The Beveridge Curve and the "she-cession"

The Beveridge Curve has been dissected in many ways over the years - by industry, by region, and by state. However, despite the availability of a proxy for a curve for each sex, there have been no estimates of the Beveridge Curve for males and females separately. This paper explains how the Beveridge Curve can be calculated in this way and provides a brief analysis of labor market conditions. Women enjoyed a more efficient labor market than men from 20032014 and in 2018-2019, but the Coronavirus-induced "she-cession" is flashing warning signs of a trend reversal. Policymakers and hiring firms alike should ensure that conditions are conducive to a return to work for women - especially mothers.

Converging Crises and the Cost of Exclusion: Unveiling the Invisible Women of Sri Lanka's Economy

In Sri Lanka, womens labor force participation has never exceeded 35% in over three decades. As of 2022, the country was ranked 110 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forums Gender Gap Index. The gaps in womens participation in the formal economy alongside womens limited political empowerment are two leading causes for the country to be lagging in such global gender equality indicators. At a large cost to the economy, the existence of archaic gender norms that promulgate womens unpaid care work often exclude women from the formal labor force. This paper dissects the socio-economic and socio-political factors that lead to the invisibility of women in Sri Lankas economy, while seeking to understand how such underlying causes have been aggravated within the precarity of the post-pandemic context. It is important, now more than ever, to recognize the invisibility of women in Sri Lankas formal economy, while bringing about a transformative vision with a multi-pronged approach to address existing gaps and challenges. With reference to key principles of feminist economics, including the theoretical foundations of Claudia Goldin, Nancy Folbre, and Diane Elson, among others, the paper will make a case for inclusivity and intersectionality in policy recommendations aimed at encouraging womens entry, active engagement, contribution, and retention in Sri Lankas economy. The paper reaches a conclusion that when women lead, participate, and benefit equally in all aspects of life, societies and economies will thrive, thereby contributing to sustainable development and inclusive economic growth.

Balanço dos impactos da crise da COVID-19 sobre o mercado de trabalho brasileiro em 2020

O objetivo deste estudo é analisar os impactos da crise associada à pandemia da Covid-19 sobre o mercado de trabalho brasileiro até o final de 2020. Para tanto, são utilizados principalmente os dados da PNAD Contínua, visando identificar o comportamento da força de trabalho, a dimensão do desemprego gerado, as principais características dos postos de trabalho perdidos e os efeitos sobre a renda do trabalho no período. O mercado de trabalho nacional foi fortemente atingido a partir de março de 2020, registrando quedas inéditas no nível de ocupação. Os trabalhadores mais prejudicados foram aqueles que se encontravam em ocupações informais e mais flexíveis, com menor grau de proteção social. Com a contração da população ocupada e do número de horas trabalhadas, houve uma intensa queda nos rendimentos do trabalho, destacadamente nas menores faixas salariais. Com isso, a pandemia pode ter deflagrado a pior crise da história do mercado de trabalho brasileiro, com impactos duradouros sobre os níveis de emprego e de renda.Alternate :This study aims to analyze the impacts of the crisis associated with the Covid-19 pandemic on the Brazilian labor market until the end of 2020. Therefore, data from PNAD Contínua are analyzed in order to identify the behavior of the labor force, the main characteristics of the jobs lost and the impacts on labor income in that period. The national labor market was strongly hit from March 2020, with a historical slump in the level of occupation. The most affected workers were those who were in informal and more flexible occupations, with a lower degree of social protection. With the contraction of the employed population and the number of hours worked, there was an intense fall in labor income, especially in the lowest salary ranges. As a result, the pandemic may have triggered the worst crisis in the history of the Brazilian labor market, with lasting impacts on employment and income levels.

Demand on Digital Skills in Russia: Regional Differences

This paper examines regional differences in the demand for digital skills based on an analysis of 9 million vacancies posted on the Unified Digital Platform ‘Work in Russia' in 2018–2022. We examine approaches used in the literature to classify digital skills and using it develop our own classification. The paper studies the advantages and limitations of various indicators of the demand for digital skills. We suggest that the ratio between the share of vacancies requiring digital skills of a certain group in the region and the labor force population should be used as the most appropriate one. The results of the study show that in Russia there is still a significant regional differentiation in the employer's demand for all selected groups. Differentiation increased with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and decreased slightly in 2021–2022. We reveal that regions with a higher level of economic development have higher requirements for digital skills. Digital skills are more often required in regions specialized on primary production and less often in agricultural regions. Of the federal districts, a slightly higher level of demand for digital skills is observed in the Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, while a significantly lower level is observed in the North Caucasus federal district. © 2023 Spatial Economics. All rights reserved.

COVID-19-associated income loss and job loss: Evidence from Indonesia.

COVID-19 pandemic has substantially altered socioeconomic conditions around the world. While numerous existing studies analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among developed states, little is known about its effects on people's lives and social discrepancies in emerging economies. To this end, we empirically analyze the 2020 Indonesian Labor Force Survey data, hypothesizing that COVID-19 has given idiosyncratic risks and impacts on people by gender, age, education, occupation and regions. We find that income loss and job loss are prominent among males, younger and less educated people as well as among self-employed and part-time non-agricultural workers. These tendencies are not pronounced for people enjoying high income and mobility, but tend to be evident for urban residents and those having dependents. Notably, self-employed people have the highest risk of losing income, while part-time urban workers face the highest probability of losing their jobs. The propensity score matching method also demonstrates that these losses are most evident for the regions susceptible to COVID-19. Overall, we suggest that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups require additional support to strengthen their resilience in the face of exogenous shocks, such as the one caused by the global coronavirus pandemic.

The effect of increasing health disaster risk and public spending on economy conditions: a DSGE perspective

PurposeThe main motivation of the present study is to understand the severity of the effect of health shock on Iran's oil economy and analyze the role of government under these conditions.Design/methodology/approachDynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models can show the precise interactions between market decision-makers in the context of general equilibrium. Since the duration of the virus outbreak and its effect on the economy is not known, it is more appropriate to use these models.FindingsThe results of the survey of hands-on policies scenarios compared to the state of hands-off policy indicate that the effect of government expending shocks on the economy under pandemic disease conditions has much less feedback on macroeconomic variables.Originality/valueAs a proposed policy, it is recommended that the government play a stabilizing role under pandemic disease conditions.Key messages There is no study regarding health shock and its economic effects in Iran using DSGE models. Also, in foreign studies, the health shock in an oil economy has not been modeled.The general idea in the present study is how the prevalence of a pandemic infectious disease affects the dynamics of macroeconomic variables.In three different scenarios, according to the persistence of health disaster risk and the deterioration rate of health capital due to this shock, the model is simulated.In modeling pandemic diseases, quarantine hours are considered as part of the total time of individuals.According to the research findings, it is recommended that the government, as a policy-maker, play a stabilizing role under pandemic crises conditions.

QUALITY-OF-LIFE INDEX ANALYSIS APPLIED TO BRICS AND G7 COUNTRIES

The main aim of the current article is to compare economic and Quality of Life (QL) indices in G7- (Germany, France, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy and Canada) and BRICS-member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). The research was developed based on selecting indices available in the NUMBEO, UN (United Nations) and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) databases. Results have evidenced that emerging countries belonging to the BRICS bloc have shown lower QL indices than those observed for developed countries in the G7 bloc. With respect to economic data, the USA, China, Japan and Germany were the countries presenting the highest GDP growth. It was possible concluding that countries belonging to the G7 block have better economic and labor indices, which, in their turn, are associated with better QoL indices.

Labour market dualization and social policy in pandemic times: an in-depth analysis of private consumption services in Europe

PurposeThis article contributes to the debate on how social policies and labour market regulation have been used to limit the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic by focusing on one specific economic segment of European labour markets: private consumption services, such as trade, tourism, catering and other support services.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis combines mixed methods and a variety of sources. First, we built a set of indicators from the EU-LFS microdata for 2019 and the 2018 Eurostat "Structure of earnings survey” and performed a cluster analysis (k-means) on the dimensions and indicators considered. Second, we elaborated EU-LFS data covering 2019 and 2020 (by quarter) and OECD 2020 data, and finally we traced Covid-related policy reforms for the period March 2020–December 2021 and analysed documents and information collected in different policy repositories.FindingsThe paper shows the relevance and characteristics of private consumption services in different countries, demonstrating that so-called labour market "outsiders” are highly represented in this sector and illustrates the policies adopted to respond to the pandemic in different European countries. The paper asks whether this emergency has been a window of opportunity to redefine regulation in this sector, making it more inclusive. It demonstrates, however, that the common approach in Europe has been dominated by temporary, short-term and one-off measures, which do not represent major changes to the social security schemes that were in place before the pandemic.Originality/valueThis article builds on the literature on labour market dualization, but approaches the concept from a different perspective – one not centred on the nature of employment relations (stable/unstable) but on economic sectors/branches. This article does not, therefore, discuss in general terms what happened to labour market outsiders during the pandemic, but rather focus attention on a specific group of workers who are highly exposed to risks stemming from dualization: those employed in the private consumption services. The economic sector perspective is an integrative way of framing dualization which is still under-researched.

Education Remains Critical with Unemployment, Employment, and Participation Rates in 2020 Being the Worst in Many Years for Aboriginals and Non-Aboriginals

The higher the level of education completed the higher the wage rates, the lower the rate of unemployment, and the higher the employment rates. Unemployment rates were significantly higher and participation and employment rates were significantly lower for Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in Canada in 2020. This may be attributed to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. The rate of unemployment increased more for nonAboriginals than for Aboriginals in 2020. However, participation and employment rates decreased more for Aboriginals than for non-Aboriginals. Employment, unemployment, and participation rates are and historically have been more favourable for non-Aboriginals than for Aboriginals. As educational levels increase, employment measures and wage rates improve. Employment measures are examined by gender, age, province, and education, and for Métis, Inuit, and First Nations.

How did COVID-19 affect the labor force participation of older workers in the first year of the pandemic?

This paper uses the Current Population Survey to study older workers' transitions out of employment and into retirement during the first year of the pandemic. We find that, among workers ages 55 to 79, the likelihood of leaving employment over the course of a year rose by 6.7 percentage points, a 43-percent increase over baseline. Workers without a college degree, Asian-Americans, those whose jobs were not amenable to social distancing, and part-time workers saw disproportionate impacts. In contrast, the likelihood of retiring increased by 1 percentage point, and there was no immediate retirement boom for full-time workers under 70.

Impact of COVID-19 on labour force and recovery peculiarities in selected countries of Europe

In this paper, we have examined the impact of COVID-19 on labour force and recovery peculiarities in selected countries of Europe. Our goal has been to reach patients with post-COVID-19 or long-COVID-19 symptoms who were treated since 2020 and latest 2021 in different medical spas around Europe. Our research focused on whether work affects any aspect of life during illness and whether complaints experienced during post-COVID-19 treatments affect any aspect of life during illness. To achieve our results, we used quantitative research and tested two hypotheses. Our primary survey was conducted in May-June 2022. A total of 110 valid responses were received. The data collected through the questionnaire was examined using statistical analysis and calculations – descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, linear regression analysis. All the respondents had COVID-19 positive test results in their life and attended post-COVID treatments in different medical spas in Europe. The results showed that coronavirus symptoms (post- or long-COVID-19 syndrome) were most likely to interfere with social and leisure activities and work. Well-being and pain need improvement. Improvement is possible with spa rehabilitation packages offering complex interventions such as balneotherapy (which uses local natural resources such as natural healing water, peloids, mofette), climatotherapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy. Working during illness has a significant impact on quality of life. It also has an impact on daily activities, mobility, and pain. Working during illness (COVID-19 infection) affected all aspects of life, and patients perceived that illness-related disturbances mainly affected work performance.

Shift or shock? Long-term balance of power in labor markets

Despite rapid growth, the aggregate job count remains below its pre-pandemic trend, particularly in service sectors. Participation rates have been depressed, especially among older groups of the population. Lingering COVID-related health care issues and concerns, including care for household members, and softness in compensation relative to inflation are possible factors relating to the softness in the labor force, accentuating the potential benefits of reviving immigration. © 2023, National Association for Business Economics.

The role of wage subsidies in the Macedonian labour market *

The main rationale for wage subsidies is giving job opportunities to workers who would otherwise remain unemployed or take jobs that do not exploit their potential productivity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the wage subsidy programme in North Macedonia for the period 2018-2019 in order to provide a sound basis for its redesign in the times of Covid-19 crisis. The Propensity score matching is used as a principal estimation method. Moreover, we further explore the impact of the wage subsidies on the outcome variables for particular disadvantaged segments by disaggregation of the average treatment effect on treated individuals. The evaluation reveals improvement of the wage subsidy program in 2019 relative to 2018. However, having in mind the impact of the Covid-19 pandemics, there is a room for redesign of this measure by improving its targeting and conditions for retaining the subsidised jobs in the long run.

Refugees in the Digital Economy: The Future of Work among the Forcibly Displaced

The current scale and duration of displacement prompts renewed urgency about livelihoods prospects for displaced people and the role of humanitarian organisations in fostering them. This special issue focuses on how aid organisations, together with the private sector and other actors, have worked to include refugees in new forms of online work within the web-based digital economy. Building on comparative analysis and a comprehensive review of the field of digital livelihoods among the forcibly displaced, in this introductory article we argue that including refugees in this digital economy is currently neither a sustainable form of humanitarian relief nor is it a development solution that provides large-scale decent work. We show how digital livelihoods approaches have gained a special footing in the middle ground between short-term economic relief and long-term development. Indeed, digital economies seemingly offer a variety of ‘quick-fix' solutions at the transition from humanitarian emergency towards long-term development efforts. While digital economies harbour significant potential, this cannot be fully realised unless current efforts to include refugees in digital economies are complemented by efforts to address digital divides, uphold refugees' rights, and ensure more decent working conditions.

Foreign Healthcare Workers and COVID-19 in Europe: The Paradox of Unemployed Skilled Labour

This report provides an overview of the skilled migrant health workforce and their contribution to health systems in European countries, particularly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Migrant workers at all skill levels have worked in key areas during the pandemic. Skilled migrant health workers, particularly medical practitioners and nurses, make up a significant portion of the frontline health workforce and are essential to keeping health systems in developed countries running. While skilled migrants often face fewer hard barriers (entry control policies: visa policy, work permit schemes, labour migration quotas), this workforce faces soft barriers (e.g., lack of recognition of foreign educational credentials and other restrictive or discriminatory measures) in accessing the host nation's labour market, as evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article explores this phenomenon, focusing on Italy's health sector and foreign health professionals' dynamics. The report concludes by proffering some practical policy recommendations to promote the inclusion of migrant health professionals in the health and social care systems in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gender, Social Protection, and Crises of Social Reproduction: Contextualizing NREGA

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of social protection programs such as India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). And yet, acute crises such as pandemics are layered upon existing inequalities of gender and caste in India. We show that a distinctive feature of twenty-first-century Indian capitalism is a restructuring of the caste-gender division of labor in rural India, such that women's unpaid labor of social reproduction has increased, particularly for women from marginalized castes. Thus, patterns of participation in NREGA cannot be understood without understanding the specifics of the underlying crisis of social reproduction for labor. Social protection programs that do not consider the labor of social reproduction and are unaccompanied by broader socialization of such labor then likely fall short of mitigating deep-rooted inequalities. JEL Classification : B54, J21, J88 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Review of Radical Political Economics is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Gender, Parenthood, and Employment During COVID-19: An Immigrant-Native Born Comparison in Canada

La pandémie de COVID-19 a bouleversé notre façon de vivre et de travailler. Au Canada, le fossé entre les sexes en matiere d'emploi chez les parents de jeunes enfants s'est considérablement enforcé pendant la pandémie. Les études antérieures, cependant, examinent les parents au Canada sans distinction de leur statut d'immigrant, bien que les parents immigrants et les parents nés au Canada puissent avoir des expériences travail-famille différentes. Dans cette étude, nous examinons comment le croisement des statuts de parent et d'immigrant a influencé l'évolution des écarts d'emploi entre les sexes pendant la pandémie. En nous servant des micro-données de l'enquete sur la main-d'œuvre (EMŒ) de mars 2019 â février 2021, nous examinons la probabilité d'emploi selon le sexe, le statut parental et le statut d'immigrant. Si l'on compare la période de fermeture des écoles (mars â aoÛt 2020) aux mėmes mois de 2019 (avant la pandémie), les femmes immigrées, quel que soit leur statut parental, ont connu des baisses d'emploi plus importantes que leurs homologues masculins et que les non-immigrants, et le fossé entre les sexes s'est le plus creusé chez les immigrants récents ayant des enfants d'âge scolaire. Lorsque les écoles ont progressivement rouvert (de septembre 2020 â février 2021), l'emploi s'est rétabli plus rapidement pour les meres récemment immigrées que pour celles établies. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats montrent que, parmi les parents de jeunes enfants, l'écart croissant entre les sexes en matiere d'emploi pendant la pandémie était concentré parmi les immigrants, les meres immigrantes étant désavantagées de maniere disproportionnée. Cette étude met en lumiere la façon dont la pandémie a exacerbé les inégalités intersectionnelles fondées sur le sexe, la parentalité et le statut d'immigrant.Alternate abstract:The COVID-19 pandemic has upended how we live and work. In Canada, the gender gap In employment among parents with young children widened substantially during the pandemic. Previous studies, however, examine parents in Canada without distinguishing them by immigrant status, although immigrant versus Canadian-born parents may have distinct work-family experiences. In this study, we investigate how the intersection of parental and immigrant statuses influenced change in gender employment gaps during the pandemic. Drawing on Labor Force Survey (LFS) microdata from March 2019 to February 2021, we examine the probability of employment by gender, parental status, and immigrant status. When comparing the school closure period (March to August 2020) relative to the same months in 2019 (pre-pandemic), immigrant women, irrespective of parental status, witnessed larger declines in employment than their male counterparts and nonimmigrants, and the gender gap widened the most among recent immigrants with school-aged children. When schools gradually reopened (September 2020 to February 2021), employment recovered faster for recent than established immigrant mothers. Overall, our findings show that among parents of young children, the growing gender gap in employment during the pandemic was concentrated among immigrants, with immigrant mothers disproportionately disadvantaged. This study illuminates how the pandemic exacerbated intersectional inequalities based on gender, parenthood, and immigrant status.

Reflections from academic mothers of young children on social work research and education

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound societal impact with unprecedented impact on women's labor force participation, including among academic mothers. Yet, persistent gendered and racialized inequities in academia remain structurally unaddressed, including in social work. We believe that as social work educators we are well-positioned to develop an academic culture that helps us refocus on what matters most;redefine excellence in teaching, service, and research;and make academic practice more equitable. To this end, we convened a group of social work academic mothers, representing various identities at teaching and research-intensive institutions, to offer collective perspectives and recommendations for structural change within the social work academy to buffer the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbating racial and gendered disparities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Older Workers in Digitalizing Workplaces: A Systematic Literature Review

Workplace digitalization created a sea change in work practices and it altered the situation of older workers. Digitalization entails the increased use of digital technologies, such as computers and online services. Older workers often possess limited digital skills, which may put their labor market participation at risk. Previous studies began exploring how older workers fare when their workplaces are digitalizing. However, the research field is still emerging and remains fragmented. This article comprises a systematic literature review that takes inventory of what we currently know about older workers in digitalizing workplaces. It demonstrates that older workers experience the digitalization of their workplaces in various areas, reaching from health monitoring to work arrangements. Interestingly, challenges and opportunities emerge in each area affected. This Janus-faced situation underlines the complexity of consequences, and it raises questions about social inequalities in these consequences. The work environment plays a crucial role in shaping how older workers experience workplace digitalization. It shapes which options for adaptation they have, and to which degree they can act on these options. This circumstance makes workplaces an excellent starting point for interventions. Country-characteristics likewise exert an influence. While characteristics such as retirement regulations are purposefully modified for intervention, other characteristics, such as culture, are not. This circumstance limits governmental options for shaping the situation of older workers in digitalizing workplaces. Future research should further explore the situation of older workers in digitalizing workplaces, paying special attention to the theoretical framework and to developments in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 Vaccines: A Shot in the Arm for the Economy

We quantify the effect of vaccinations on economic activity in the United States using weekly county-level data covering the period end-2020 to mid-2021.Causal effects are identified through instrumenting vaccination rates with county-level pharmacy density interacted with state-level vaccine allocations, and by including county and state-time fixed effects to control for unobserved factors. We find that vaccinations are a significant and substantial shot in the arm of the economy. Specifically, spending rises by 1.3 percentage points (relative to the average spending during January 2020) in response to a 1% point increase in initiated vaccination rates. Initial unemployment decreases by 0.09 percentage points of the 2019 labor force. Vaccinations also increase workplace mobility. Urban counties and counties with initially worse socioeconomic conditions and lower education levels exhibit larger effects of vaccinations.