Less Work, More Labor: School Closures and Work Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria

Less Work, More Labor: School Closures and Work Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria PDF Author: Lisa Hanzl
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent increase in caregiving demands threaten to reverse decades of progress in integrating women into the labor market. This paper explores the gendered impact of school and day care closures on paid work hours during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria. We use data from the Austrian Corona Panel Project (ACPP), which covers the period from March 2020 to March 2021, augmented by unique data on school closures for under 14-year olds, as well as data on school and workplace closures from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OCGRT) data base in order to study the differential adjustments in work hours by gender and parental status over the course of the pandemic. Austria is a particularly interesting case for investigating the links between school closures and the labor supply, since school closures constituted one of the main pillars of COVID-19 pandemic policies, and these in turn were highly volatile. Descriptive data show that both women and men severely cut their working time especially in the first months of the pandemic in spring 2020. However, after work hours stabilized around July 2020, mothers reduced work hours more than fathers in periods with mandatory school closures. Controlling for socio-economic as well as work time variables, an OLS model shows that mothers reduced their work time on top of being female and a parent. A fixed-effects model indicates that women in general reduced their working hours more than men during school closures. This effect is predominantly driven by mothers, whose weekly work hours fell by an economically and statistically significant 22 percent on average, or approximately 5.8 hours, when schools were closed. In contrast, we cannot confirm a statistically significant change in work hours for fathers. Since we also find an effect of school closures on the work time of childless women and men, the variable may in fact capture indirect policy effects and thus represent the tightness of COVID-19 measures. This hypothesis is confirmed by a robustness check: School closures for over 14 year-olds now only affect childless individuals, whereas school closures for under 14 year-olds mainly affect their mothers. The results are robust to model choice. Finally, a logit model for the labor force participation shows robust gender and parental effects, but fails to confirm the effect of school closures. This may be due to the pandemic policy in Austria, which was aimed at maintaining employment mainly through short-time work. These findings suggest that (post-) pandemic policy should focus on counteracting this potential weaker labor market attachment of mothers, in particular by restoring safe and reliable school service.

Less Work, More Labor: School Closures and Work Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria

Less Work, More Labor: School Closures and Work Hours During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria PDF Author: Lisa Hanzl
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent increase in caregiving demands threaten to reverse decades of progress in integrating women into the labor market. This paper explores the gendered impact of school and day care closures on paid work hours during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria. We use data from the Austrian Corona Panel Project (ACPP), which covers the period from March 2020 to March 2021, augmented by unique data on school closures for under 14-year olds, as well as data on school and workplace closures from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OCGRT) data base in order to study the differential adjustments in work hours by gender and parental status over the course of the pandemic. Austria is a particularly interesting case for investigating the links between school closures and the labor supply, since school closures constituted one of the main pillars of COVID-19 pandemic policies, and these in turn were highly volatile. Descriptive data show that both women and men severely cut their working time especially in the first months of the pandemic in spring 2020. However, after work hours stabilized around July 2020, mothers reduced work hours more than fathers in periods with mandatory school closures. Controlling for socio-economic as well as work time variables, an OLS model shows that mothers reduced their work time on top of being female and a parent. A fixed-effects model indicates that women in general reduced their working hours more than men during school closures. This effect is predominantly driven by mothers, whose weekly work hours fell by an economically and statistically significant 22 percent on average, or approximately 5.8 hours, when schools were closed. In contrast, we cannot confirm a statistically significant change in work hours for fathers. Since we also find an effect of school closures on the work time of childless women and men, the variable may in fact capture indirect policy effects and thus represent the tightness of COVID-19 measures. This hypothesis is confirmed by a robustness check: School closures for over 14 year-olds now only affect childless individuals, whereas school closures for under 14 year-olds mainly affect their mothers. The results are robust to model choice. Finally, a logit model for the labor force participation shows robust gender and parental effects, but fails to confirm the effect of school closures. This may be due to the pandemic policy in Austria, which was aimed at maintaining employment mainly through short-time work. These findings suggest that (post-) pandemic policy should focus on counteracting this potential weaker labor market attachment of mothers, in particular by restoring safe and reliable school service.

Evidence on the gendered impacts of extended school closures

Evidence on the gendered impacts of extended school closures PDF Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231005111
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 87

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Austrian Schools in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era

Austrian Schools in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era PDF Author: Herbert Altrichter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Abstract: Like many other school systems around the world, Austrian schools were crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic for an extended period of time. In 2020 and 2021, students in Austria spent between 40% and 60% of their school days in (partial) distance education. After explaining the main features of the Austrian school system, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of Austrian pandemic management in the school sector in 2020, 2021, and early 2022. In a further step, the most important empirical research findings on key effects of school closures and COVID-19-related changes on the learning and well-being of children and young people are compiled and summarized. Furthermore, the paper examines how teachers and parents in Austria have coped with this new situation. Finally, the main features of Austrian pandemic management in schools and a number of implications for future school practice and research are discussed. (DIPF/Orig.)

Women and Austerity

Women and Austerity PDF Author: Maria Karamessini
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135073988
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Austerity has become the new principle for public policy in Europe and the US as the financial crisis of 2008 has been converted into a public debt crisis. However, current austerity measures risk losing past progress towards gender equality by undermining important employment and social welfare protections and putting gender equality policy onto the back burner. This volume constitutes the first attempt to identify how the economic crisis and the subsequent austerity policies are affecting women in Europe and the US, tracing the consequences for gender equality in employment and welfare systems in nine case studies from countries facing the most severe adjustment problems. The contributions adopt a common framework to analyse women in recession, which takes into account changes in women’s position and current austerity conditions. The findings demonstrate that in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, employment gaps between women and men declined — but due only to a deterioration in men’s employment position rather than any improvements for women. Tables are set to be turned by the austerity policies which are already having a more negative impact on demand for female labour and on access to services which support working mothers. Women are nevertheless reinforcing their commitment to paid work, even at this time of increasing demands on their unpaid domestic labour. Future prospects are bleak. Current policy is reinforcing the same failed mechanisms that caused the crisis in the first place and is stalling or even reversing the long term growth in social investment in support for care. This book makes the case for gender equality to be placed at the centre of any progressive plan for a route out of the crisis.

Design and Take Up of Austria's Coronavirus Short Time Work Model

Design and Take Up of Austria's Coronavirus Short Time Work Model PDF Author: Dennis Tamesberger
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Short-time work was frequently used in the EU during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize crisis-related layoffs. This paper focuses on the short-time work (STW) scheme in Austria by exploring the characteristic features of the Austrian Coronavirus STW model and examining how it was utilized. We first give a historical overview of how STW developed in Austria before focusing specifically on the country's STW scheme - one of the most generous among the EU27 - during the course of the coronavirus pandemic. By analyzing relevant data, we identified three key periods in which STW was reformed and slightly modified. We also aim to show how STW take-up rates differ according to gender and sector. Moreover, we consider STW payments alongside sectors and are able to identify those sectors that see a greater benefit from STW. We conclude that the pandemic offered learning effects, thus allowing STW to be used more efficiently in the future by employers in times of crisis.

Work, Precarity and COVID-19

Work, Precarity and COVID-19 PDF Author: Christine Pichler
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3658420200
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
The anthology presents the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the field of work and gainful employment from a multidisciplinary perspective of social and economic sciences. Specifically, it deals with the analysis of changes in work processes and relations in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Different facets of the discussion are taken up, and the topic of "work, precarity and COVID-19" is discussed along a wide range of diversity categories (age, gender, disability, social origin, ethnicity, religion, etc.) and their intersections (intersectionality). At the same time, the focus is on discussing alternative models and ways of dealing with the current crisis that (re)establish social justice and inclusion through work. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Gendered Technology in Translation and Interpreting

Gendered Technology in Translation and Interpreting PDF Author: Esther Monzó-Nebot
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040035523
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This collection takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of gendered technology, an emerging area of inquiry that draws on a range of fields to explore how technology is designed and used in a way that reinforces or challenges gender norms and inequalities. The volume explores different perspectives on the impact of technology on gender relations through specific cases of translation and interpreting technologies. In particular, the book considers the slow response of legal frameworks in dealing with the rise of language-based technologies, especially machine translation and large language models, and their impacts on individual and collective rights. Part I introduces the study of gendered technologies at this intersection of legal and translation and interpreting research, before moving into case studies of specific technologies. The cases explored in Parts II and III discuss the impact of interpreting and translation technologies on language professionals, language communities, and gender inequalities, while stressing the future needs of gendered technology, particularly machine translation. Taken together, the collection demonstrates the value of a cross-disciplinary approach in better understanding how language technologies can be harnessed to address discrimination and contribute to growing discussions on gender equality and social justice at the intersection of technology and translation. This book will be of interest to scholars in translation and interpreting studies, gender studies, language technologies, and language and the law.

The State of the Global Education Crisis

The State of the Global Education Crisis PDF Author: UNESCO
Publisher: UNESCO Publishing
ISBN: 9231004913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Book Description
"The global disruption to education caused by the COVD-19 pandemic is without parallel and the effects on learning are severe. The crisis brought education systems across the world to a halt, with school closures affecting more than 1.6 billion learners. While nearly every country in the world offered remote learning opportunities for students, the quality and reach of such initiatives varied greatly and were at best partial substitutes for in-person learning. Now, 21 months later, schools remain closed for millions of children and youth, and millions more are at risk of never returning to education. Evidence of the detrimental impacts of school closures on children's learning offer a harrowing reality: learning losses are substantial, with the most marginalized children and youth often disproportionately affected. Countries have an opportunity to accelerate learning recovery and make schools more efficient, equitable, and resilient by building on investments made and lessons learned during the crisis. Now is the time to shift from crisis to recovery - and beyond recovery, to resilient and transformative education systems that truly deliver learning and well-being for all children and youth."--The World Bank website.

The Rise in Inequality After Pandemics: Can Fiscal Support Play a Mitigating Role?

The Rise in Inequality After Pandemics: Can Fiscal Support Play a Mitigating Role? PDF Author: Davide Furceri
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513582402
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Major epidemics of the last two decades (SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola and Zika) have been followed by increases in inequality (Furceri, Loungani, Ostry and Pizzuto, 2020). In this paper, we show that the extent of fiscal consolidation in the years following the onset of these pandemics has played an important role in determining the extent of the increase in inequality. Episodes marked by extreme austerity—measured using either the government’s fiscal balance, health expenditures or redistribution—have been associated with an increase in the Gini measure of inequality three times as large as in episodes where fiscal policy has been more supportive. We survey the evidence thus far on the distributional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which suggests that inequality is likely to increase in the absence of strong policy actions. We review the case made by many observers (IMF 2020; Stiglitz 2020; Sandbu 2020b) that fiscal support should not be withdrawn prematurely despite understandable concerns about high public debt-to-GDP ratios.

Reduction of hours of work in the textile industry

Reduction of hours of work in the textile industry PDF Author: International Labour Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Building
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description