ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak and the measures to contain the virus have caused severe disruptions to labor supply and demand worldwide. Understanding who is bearing the burden of the crisis and the economic cost associated with it is crucial for designing policies in the future. This chapter analyzes the different employment outcomes of men and women in the United States following the onset of the pandemic. We find that women with young children, particularly the less educated, were the most adversely affected by the crisis. We estimate that the female employment penalty for mothers with young children grew much faster than for women without young children. It took a full year for the negative effect on employment for mothers with young children to dissipate.
