The Covid-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in labour markets across the world including loss of employment and decline in incomes. Using panel data from India, we investigate the differential impact of the shock on labour market outcomes for male and female workers. We find that, conditional on being in the workforce prior to the pandemic, women were seven times more likely to lose work during the nationwide lockdown, and conditional on losing work, eleven times more likely to not return to work subsequently, compared to men. Using logit regressions on a sample stratified by gender, we find that daily wage and young workers, whether men or women, were more likely to face job loss. Education shielded male workers from job loss, whereas highly educated female workers were more vulnerable to job loss. Marriage had contrasting effects for men and women, with married women less likely to return to work and married men more likely to return to work. Religion and gender intersect to exacerbate the disproportionate impact, with Muslim women more likely to not return to work, unlike Muslim men for whom we find religion having no significant impact. Finally, for those workers who did return to work, we find that a large share of men in the workforce moved to self-employment or daily wage work, in agriculture, trade or construction. For women, on the other hand, there is limited movement into alternate employment arrangements or industries. This suggests that typical ‘fallback’ options for employment do not exist for women. During such a shock, women are forced to exit the workforce whereas men negotiate across industries and employment arrangements.

Covid-19 大流行给全球劳动力市场造成了前所未有的混乱，包括失业和收入下降。利用印度的面板数据，我们调查了冲击对男性和女性劳动力市场结果的不同影响。我们发现，与男性相比，如果在大流行之前就职，女性在全国封锁期间失业的可能性是男性的 7 倍，而在失业的条件下，随后不重返工作岗位的可能性是男性的 11 倍。对按性别分层的样本使用 logit 回归，我们发现日薪和年轻工人，无论是男性还是女性，更有可能面临失业。教育保护男性工人免于失业，而受过高等教育的女性工人更多容易失业。婚姻对男性和女性产生了不同的影响，已婚女性不太可能重返工作岗位，已婚男性更有可能重返工作岗位。宗教和性别交叉加剧了这种不成比例的影响，穆斯林女性更有可能不重返工作岗位，这与我们发现宗教没有显着影响的穆斯林男性不同。最后，对于那些确实重返工作岗位的工人，我们发现劳动力中很大一部分男性转向自营职业或日薪工作，从事农业、贸易或建筑业。另一方面，对于女性来说，进入替代就业安排或行业的机会有限。这表明女性不存在典型的“后备”就业选择。在这样的震惊中，