Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

What if Sweden had Imposed a Lockdown? A Synthetic Control Study on the Effects of the Swedish Covid-19 Response on Gender-Specific Labor Market Outcomes

Wiktorsson, Elvira LU and Hjortsäter, Cajsa (2021) NEKN01 20211
Department of Economics
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a global recession that has had large negative effects on both men and women in the Swedish labor market. We examine how the Swedish strategy of not imposing a lockdown has affected gender-specific labor market outcomes: relative female employment rate and weekly hours worked. To begin with, we study the development of these outcomes in Sweden. Looking at relative female employment we find evidence that women initially were hit harder by the pandemic than men, although this effect was transitory. On the contrary, looking at weekly hours worked, men initially seem to have been harder hit by the pandemic than women. Furthermore, to estimate the causal effect of the Swedish strategy we use the synthetic control... (More)
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a global recession that has had large negative effects on both men and women in the Swedish labor market. We examine how the Swedish strategy of not imposing a lockdown has affected gender-specific labor market outcomes: relative female employment rate and weekly hours worked. To begin with, we study the development of these outcomes in Sweden. Looking at relative female employment we find evidence that women initially were hit harder by the pandemic than men, although this effect was transitory. On the contrary, looking at weekly hours worked, men initially seem to have been harder hit by the pandemic than women. Furthermore, to estimate the causal effect of the Swedish strategy we use the synthetic control method. Using this method we create a counterfactual scenario where Sweden imposes a lockdown and compare these synthetic outcomes with actual Swedish outcomes. We find that women would have been relatively benefited by a lockdown considering the employment rate, while not imposing a lockdown has been favorable for women when looking at relative weekly hours worked. These results suggest that women would meet the increased child care need related to a lockdown by decreasing their hours worked, but not by leaving the labor force. Moreover, our results indicate that the initial relative female employment drop in the pandemic recession was driven by a decreased relative female labor demand and that the Swedish furlough program might have been relatively disadvantageous for women. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Wiktorsson, Elvira LU and Hjortsäter, Cajsa
supervisor
organization
course
NEKN01 20211
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Covid-19, Gender equality, Labor market, Sweden, Synthetic control method
language
English
id
9061864
date added to LUP
2021-08-09 13:45:52
date last changed
2021-08-09 13:45:52
@misc{9061864,
  abstract     = {{The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a global recession that has had large negative effects on both men and women in the Swedish labor market. We examine how the Swedish strategy of not imposing a lockdown has affected gender-specific labor market outcomes: relative female employment rate and weekly hours worked. To begin with, we study the development of these outcomes in Sweden. Looking at relative female employment we find evidence that women initially were hit harder by the pandemic than men, although this effect was transitory. On the contrary, looking at weekly hours worked, men initially seem to have been harder hit by the pandemic than women. Furthermore, to estimate the causal effect of the Swedish strategy we use the synthetic control method. Using this method we create a counterfactual scenario where Sweden imposes a lockdown and compare these synthetic outcomes with actual Swedish outcomes. We find that women would have been relatively benefited by a lockdown considering the employment rate, while not imposing a lockdown has been favorable for women when looking at relative weekly hours worked. These results suggest that women would meet the increased child care need related to a lockdown by decreasing their hours worked, but not by leaving the labor force. Moreover, our results indicate that the initial relative female employment drop in the pandemic recession was driven by a decreased relative female labor demand and that the Swedish furlough program might have been relatively disadvantageous for women.}},
  author       = {{Wiktorsson, Elvira and Hjortsäter, Cajsa}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{What if Sweden had Imposed a Lockdown? A Synthetic Control Study on the Effects of the Swedish Covid-19 Response on Gender-Specific Labor Market Outcomes}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}