The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Gender Inequality in Hours of Work in Canada

Abstract

In this study, I use Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply side of the labour market. Specifically, I analyze how the labour supply of men and women changed, and whether this change decreased the gap between the hours of work of men and women. Many recent studies find that women’s labour force status and labour supply have deteriorated because of the pandemic. The main reasons are the closure of school facilities, which imposed an extra burden on women to stay at home and care for their children, and the chaos occuring in the market that had a greater effect on industries in which mostly women work. My findings show that while these kinds of closures affected the hours of work of individuals, they did not affect women more severely than men. While men experienced a larger drop in hours of work than women, the gender difference did not significantly change compared to last year. I show with graphs and with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition that the pandemic did not affect the gender difference in hours worked significantly. I also highlight the effect of remote working and show that those who can do 30-40% of their work remotely experienced a larger drop in hours, but recovered to their previous levels in a shorter period of time.