The Impact of Job Disruptions on Households During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Project partners: Hannah Illing (IAB), Michael Oberfichtner (IAB), Nico Pestel (IZA), Simon Trenkle (IZA), Johannes Schmieder (Boston University)

This project studies the costs of job disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany for one group that faces particularly daunting challenges: households and in particular families with children. The researchers are seeking to answer two key research questions: First, what are the costs of job disruptions, which are defined as including job displacement, furloughs, involuntary part time, and short time work, at the household level, where one or both partners may experience a disruption? Second, to what extent do the labor market effects of these disruptions differ between men and women? The cornerstone of the project is to combine rich social security data with a targeted survey to construct a high quality data frame to study these questions. A key piece of the analysis will be to investigate the effects of job disruptions on a number of labor market outcomes using an event study type analysis.