The Economic Impacts of the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Australia: A Closer Look at Gender Gaps in Employment, Earnings and Education

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Author: Leonora Risse
• Date: 01 March 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12502

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 56, no. 1, pp. 91–108 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12502

The Economic Impacts of the COVID‐19 Pandemic in Australia:

A Closer Look at Gender Gaps in Employment, Earnings

and Education

Leonora Risse*

Abstract

Three years into the COVID‐19 pandemic,

this article considers the longer‐lasting eco-

nomic impacts on the Australian workforce

through a gender lens. Using Australian

Bureau of Statistics data, it analyses changes

in employment, earnings and educational

participation relative to the pre‐pandemic

trends that were predicted to have otherwise

occurred. Despite women's employment

moving back towards pre‐pandemic levels

more rapidly than men's, the pandemic also

saw a widening of the gender gap in earnings

and a larger fall in women's educational

participation. This paper highlights the need

for ongoing monitoring of labour market

indicators through a gender lens to inform

more responsive policy design.

JEL CLASSIFICATION

J21 (Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure);

J16 (Economics of Gender); J31 (Wage Differentials)

1. Introduction

The economic impacts of the COVID‐19

pandemic in Australia were distinctly dif-

ferent from previous economic downturns.

Triggered by the impacts of lockdowns and

other preventative measures implemented to

limit the spread of the virus, as well as

changes in behaviour among consumers as

they responded to the health risks, the

pandemic pushed the Australian economy

into a recession in 2020 and job losses

rippled across the labour force. Reflecting

pre‐existing gender patterns in industry of

employment, household roles and caring

responsibilities, the economic impacts of the

pandemic were sharply delineated by gender.

In contrast to the impacts of the 1990s

recession and global financial crisis (GFC)

where job losses were predominantly shoul-

dered by men, the bulk of the decline in

employment during the first year of the

COVID‐19 pandemic was shouldered by

women (Figure 1). Risse and Jackson

(2021c) calculate that, in November 2020,

women had experienced three out of five net

job losses across Australia, and four out of

five job losses within Victoria. This was

relative to pre‐pandemic employment levels

in March 2020 and disproportionately larger

than women's 47 per cent share of total

employment in pre‐pandemic times. Women

also absorbed the bulk of the expansion in

unpaid caring and home schooling during

the first year of the pandemic (Craig and

* School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT

University; email: <leonora.risse@rmit.edu.au>.

© 2023 The Authors. The Australian Economic Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of The University of

Melbourne, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in

any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Churchill 2021a, 2021b). Craig (2020) detects

that during the first few months of the

pandemic lockdowns in Australia, the average

amount of time that men spent on unpaid

domestic work increased by two‐and‐a‐half

hours per day, while women's increased by an

average of three‐and‐a‐half hours per day.

Collectively, these factors resulted in a larger

fall in labour force participation rates among

women than among men. In the first two

months of the pandemic, women's participa-

tion rate fell by 3.7 percentage points to reach

57.4 per cent by May 2020, while men's

participation rate declined by 2.9 percentage

points to 67.9 per cent (Figure 2).

At the same time that women's workforce

attachment was experiencing this volatility,

pressures intensified in several female‐

concentrated sectors that were experiencing

heightened demand for services and an urgent

need to redesign service delivery to be COVID

safe, including nursing, aged care, community

services, child care and education. This led to

concerns about burnout, erosion of well‐being

andstaffattritioninthesefemale‐concentrated

workforces (Dabrowski 2020; Halcomb

et al. 2020; Krzyzaniak et al. 2021; Smallwood

et al. 2021; Brooks, Creely and Laletas 2022;

Murray et al. 2022; Tierney, Doherty and

Elliott 2022). Similar gender‐patterned dynamics

were observed globally, generating widespread

concern that the effects of the pandemic would

undo the gains made in women's economic

progress over many preceding decades (Alon

et al. 2020; Albanesi and Kim 2021).

Policy responses had a role to play in

attempting to both contain the spread of the

virus and support households and businesses to

withstand the economic impacts. As large parts

of the economy were shut down to contain the

spread of the virus, fiscal and monetary policy

responses focused on preserving jobs and

minimising the anticipated increase in unem-

ployment. Th ese expansiona ry policy resp onses

included the nationwide wage subsidy

JobKeeper scheme to maintain workers' attach-

ment to their employer during this time of

precarity. A comprehensive summary of

Australian Government policy responses is

provided by Campbell and Vines (2021).

The Government's policy responses were

critiqued, however, for being unresponsive to

the gender‐patterned impacts of the pandemic

(Senate Select Committee on COVID‐19 2020).

As an example, the Australian Government

deemed early childhood education and care

sector workers ineligible for the JobKeeper

payment from July 2020: this was the only

occupational category whose eligibility was

discontinued at this time. Also at this time, the

Australian Government ended the provision of

fully subsidised childcare—which had been

Figure 1 Change in Employment During Economic Downturns, by Gender, Australia

Note: Figure shows the net change in employment measured from the pre‐period to the peak of each economic downturn,

using ABS Labour Force, Australia.

Source: Adapted from Risse and Jackson (2021a).

92 The Australian Economic Review March 2023

© 2023 The Authors. The Australian Economic Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of The

University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, Faculty of Business and Economics.