How Did the Great Recession Affect Different Types of Workers? Evidence from 17 Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu This paper examines how different types of workers in 17 middle-income countries were affected by labor market retrenchment during the great recession. Impacts on different types of workers varied by country and were only weakly related to the severity of the shock. Among active workers, youth experienced by far the largest adverse impacts on employment, unemployment, and wage employment, particularly relative to older adults. The percentage employment reductions, for example, were greatest for youth in each sector of the economy, as firms reacted to the shock by substituting away from inexperienced workers. Employment rates, as a share of the population, also plummeted for men. Larger drops in male employment were primarily attributable to men's higher initial rate of employment, although men's concentration in the hard-hit industrial sector also played an important role. Within each sector, percentage employment declines were similar for men and women. Added worker effects among women were mild, even among less-educated workers. Differences in labor market outcomes across education groups and urban or rural residence tended to be smaller. These findings bolster the case for targeted support to displaced youth and wage employees. Programs targeted to female and unskilled workers should be undertaken with appropriate caution or empirical support from timely data, as they may not benefit the majority of affected workers. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: E24, E32, J21, O15

‘Man-covery’: recession, labour market, and gender relations in Ireland

“…The latest global recession has been no exception with notable differences in its effects by gender (Hoynes et al 2011). The recent recession has been referred to as a 'man-cession', given the common perception that men were more adversely affected during the downturn due to the large decline in industries that are largely male dominated (Cho and Newhouse 2013;Pissarides 2013;Sierminska and Takhtamanova 2011). Indeed, this has been the case in Ireland where a large proportion of men (one in five) were employed in the construction sector prior to the recession.…”

Youth prospects in a time of economic recession

“…In particular, the crisis has hit the young population very hard. During the recession youth unemployment has increased disproportionately with respect to the overall unemployment level (Bell et al 2011;Cho and Newhouse 2013). According to official statistics, if the overall unemployment rate increased by 3.3% from 2007 to 2012 on average in Europe, the youth unemployment rate increased by 4.6% for the 30-34 age group, by 5.1% for those aged 25-29, and by 7.3% for the 20-24 age group (OECD 2013).…”

Crisis at home: mancession-induced change in intrahousehold distribution

“…2 Using our 2 So far, the existing literature on the mancession essentially focused on measuring the gender gap emerging with the economic crisis, and assessed the vulnerability across different demographic groups (Sierminska and Takhtamanova, 2010;Hoynes et al, 2012;Cho and Newhouse, 2013). While there exists widespread evidence over the redistributive impacts of economic crises between the households, little is known about the changes in the relative welfare of individuals living in these households.…”