Joan Monras discussion of: Unsafe jobs

ABSTRACT

While some economic shocks affect different individuals in similar ways, most affect individuals very differently. A good example of this is how Covid-19 affected different types of workers. For workers who could work from home, the effects of Covid-19 were mild. This is for two reasons. First, their exposure to Covid-19 was low, given that they could reduce social interactions to low levels. Second, they could continue working and hence, their incomes also were likely to remain at similar levels, particularly if they were employed in essential sectors, that is, those that were not affected by policy mandates to shut-down production.