Discussion

• Author: Eleni Papadimitriou - Zsuzsa Blaskó
• Pages: 15-16

15

4Discussion

Fro m the startof t his c risis exp erts hav e ar gued 12th at th e COVI D-19 is ve ry d iffer ent fr om

the “usual” downturns, when it typ icall y a ffects males’ j obs m ore than females’. Previous

stu dies hav e show n t hat m en’s empl oym ent var ies m or e st rong ly o ver th e econ omic cycle s

th an fem ales’ 13, al so b ecaus emen ’s job s t end t o be con cent ra ted in eco nom ic secto rs worse

hitby economic crises.14The specific characteristics oft he COVID-19crisis, an d in

particular the social distancing measures, however,creat e a situation ver y diff erent from

th e “u sual” downtur ns and lead t o a poten tially v ery different relat ion b etween m en’s and

wom en’ s exp osure t o t he cr isis.

Whi le it is wid ely a ccepte d th at the ma ssive negat ive imp act of COVI D-19 wi ll b e un eve nly

dist rib uted acros s t he variousse gm ent s o f t he soci ety , th e ex act ef fect s are yet t o b e se en.

In particular, we need to wait for the 2020 EU Labour Force Survey data to get a

com prehensive pi cture of w hat t emp oral an d lo nger te rm dam ages the cr isis has mad e to

the employm ent situation of men and women across Europe. Meanwhile we need to rely

on preliminary sources, such as expert predictions on how the different parts of the

econom y a re likely to be af fected.

The present noteuses two available resources that both aim at identifying the most

vulnerable economic sectors during the pandemic. Both the ILO and CEDEFOPpr ovi de

syst emat ic, meth odolog ically sound classif ication s of the econom ic sect ors t hat allow us to

assess – amongmanyother things – the expected economic vulnerability of men and

women to the crisis. The two organizations howeverclassify the economic sectors

differently, which in t he end leads to qualitatively different conclusions wit h regardboth

t o t he size of th e pr oblem ove rall and to the gen der disparities in th e lab our mar ket im pact

of COVI D-19.

According to theI LO’s classification, globally, women are at a somewhat higher risk of

losing their jobs than men. I n the EUhowever, the situation is the opposite, with a

considerably largershare of men than women working in the high-risk sectors.

Thi s is ma inly be cause th e I LO cla ssifi es j obs in mal e-dom inatedMa nuf acturing as be in g

at h igh ris k. This assum ptionresu lts inan alar min gly lar ge num ber (89 mi llio n) of peop le

wor kin g in a b adlyaffected sect or in th e EU, wh ich altoget her em ploys 4 8 p er cent of m ale

workers and 42% of fem ale workers.Basedto this approach,w om en’s em plo ymen tin

Europe appears to bemore vulnerablecompared to men’s onlyin Romania and

Bulgaria– mostly because in these two countries the share of men and women in

Manu facturing is close t o par ity.

If w e, how ever, apply the sectoral classification created by CEDEFOPf or theEU and UK,

we findth at the Eur opean concerns about women’s increased vulnerabilityarejustified.

Our calculation s show that on t he European averagerough ly 44million j obs can be found

in hi gh-r isk sect ors– po tent ial ly a ffect ing 25 per cent of fem ale emp loye es an d 20 per cen t

of ma les. The overall num bers are lo werand al somen’s share issmallercom par ed t o the

other estimates mainlybecause th e setof high-r isk sect ors in this case does not inclu de

Manu factu rin g. Fol lowin g t his appr oach, we find th at in 14 EU M em be r S tat es wo me n’s

em pl oym en t i s con sid era bly m ore at r isk, th an th at of m en. To t hes e bel ong several

Central and Eastern European cou ntr ies, includingBulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Latvia,

Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Czechia, but also Spain, Austria,Ireland, Italy

an d Ger man y.

We have no objective measure at hand to assess and compare the validity of the two

dist inct categorizations offered by ILO and CEDEFOP. Our m ain guide is the consideration

th at CEDEFOP m ade it s evaluation for Europ e specif ically and t heref ore w e expect it to be

12Alon , T. , Doe pke, M., Olmst ead- Rum sey, J., & Tert ilt , M. (20 20) . The Im pact of COVID- 19 on Gen der Equali ty.

39 . https://www.nber.org/papers/w26947.pdf

13Doepke,Matthias, and Michèle Tertilt. 2016. “Families in Macroeconomics.” Chapter 23 of Handbook of

Macr oecon omi cs, Vol . 2. Nor th Holla nd.

14Cosku n, Sena, and Hu snu Dalgi c. 2 020 . “ The Emer genc e of Procy clica l Fert ilit y: Th e Rol e of Gend er Diff eren ces

in Empl oym ent Risk. ” CRC TR 224D iscuss ion Pap er S eries No. 142