Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/267842 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 2022/90
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Previous economic downturns such as the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis disproportionately affected male employment due to greater contractions in industries typically filled by men (e.g., manufacturing). However, after the imposition of the 'hard' COVID-19 lockdown between 2020 quarter 1 and 2 in South Africa, both men and women lost about a million jobs. We show a higher ratio of female-to-male job loss in the 2020 recession compared to 2008- 09 is partly explained by South African women's clustering in occupations high in physical proximity (e.g., services). South African labour market data are combined with occupational work context data from O*NET to show that employment change between 2020 quarter 1 and 2 (but not 2008 and 2009) is well explained by factors specific to COVID-19 social distancing protocols. Occupations higher in physical proximity, difficult to perform from home, or deemed non-essential by government were most likely to shed jobs.
Subjects: 
pandemic
COVID-19
occupational sorting
O*NET
physical proximity
work from home
gender
JEL: 
I10
J01
J16
J24
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-224-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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