Women are bearing brunt of coronavirus economic shutdown in UK and US

Researchers find a gender gap in job loss probabilities even after controlling for education and occupation type. They also find a gender gap in hours of childcare during the pandemic. Of all those still employed, 32% of people in the UK and 37% of people in the US believe they will lose their jobs in the next few months Christopher Rauh Women on both sides of the Atlantic are more likely to have lost their jobs or suffered a fall in earnings since the coronavirus pandemic took hold - even after accounting for differences in types of occupation, a new study suggests. Economists from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Zurich have collected two waves of data in the UK and the US - the first toward the end of March and then again in the middle of April - from almost 15,000 people. The second wave of data from mid-April suggests that - across gender, age and occupation - a total of 15% of the UK population have lost their jobs due to the economic impact of coronavirus. In the US it's even higher: a total of 18%. However, significantly higher rates of women and workers without a degree had experienced job loss or wage drops in the four weeks prior to questioning, compared to men and those with a university education.