Research shows that Covid-19 enhanced inequality in families’ learning environments. We use register data from Denmark to analyze inequality in families’ takeout of digital children’s books from public libraries. Our register data, which include more than 55 million observations of families’ daily library takeout, show that the socioeconomic gradient in library takeout (by parents’ education and income) that existed before the Covid-19 lockdown increased after the lockdown. We also find that the increase in the socioeconomic gradient during Covid-19 was weaker in immigrant than in native families, stronger in families with recent experience in taking out digital materials from the library, and stronger in families with children in the early stages of elementary school. Overall, our results suggest that Covid-19 increased inequality in learning opportunities because better off families were more successful at using libraries during the pandemic than worse off families.

研究表明，Covid-19 加剧了家庭学习环境的不平等。我们使用丹麦的登记数据来分析家庭从公共图书馆获取数字儿童图书的不平等情况。我们的登记数据包括超过 5500 万个家庭日常图书馆外借的观察结果，表明 Covid-19 封锁之前存在的图书馆外借的社会经济梯度（按家长的教育程度和收入）在封锁之后有所增加。我们还发现，Covid-19期间，移民家庭的社会经济梯度的增加较本地家庭弱，最近有从图书馆取出数字资料的家庭的社会经济梯度的增加较强，有小学早期阶段儿童的家庭的社会经济梯度的增加较本地家庭的增加更强。学校。总体而言，我们的结果表明，Covid-19 加剧了学习机会的不平等，因为在疫情期间，富裕家庭比贫困家庭更能成功地利用图书馆。