This paper explores the shock of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to study the effect of childcare responsibilities on analyst forecasts. With manually collected data on whether analysts have children, I find that female analysts with children (mother analysts) are less likely to issue timely forecasts after school closures, compared to male analysts with children (father analysts). Mother analysts’ forecasts also become less accurate after school closures, but the negative effect only exists among forecasts for firms with relatively low institutional ownership, suggesting that mother analysts prioritize maintaining the forecast accuracy for firms that are more important to their careers. Additionally, mother analysts shift forecast release times to avoid childcare hours. My findings imply that childcare responsibilities hurt the productivity of mother analysts more than that of father analysts, even though these women have established themselves in a competitive industry.

本文探讨了 COVID-19 大流行造成的学校停课的冲击，以研究儿童保育责任对分析师预测的影响。通过手动收集分析师是否有孩子的数据，我发现与有孩子的男性分析师（父亲分析师）相比，有孩子的女性分析师（母亲分析师）在学校停课后不太可能及时发布预测。学校停课后，母亲分析师的预测也会变得不那么准确，但负面影响只存在于对机构所有权相对较低的公司的预测中，这表明母亲分析师优先考虑维持对其职业生涯更重要的公司的预测准确性。此外，母亲分析师还改变了预测发布时间，以避免育儿时间。