This paper uses a unique survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey to analyze men's and women's time use under lockdown. The study finds that while men's participation in unpaid work increased, particularly for men who switched to working from home, the relative increase for women further widened the gender gap in unpaid work. The gender gap in paid work narrowed due to relatively less employment disruption for women and a relatively higher decrease in men's paid work. The total workload of employed women reached levels that make it hard to sustain a decent work-life balance. Disparities in unpaid work among women by education and employment status decreased, reflecting how purchasing power became somewhat irrelevant under the pandemic measures. These findings unveil simultaneously the fragility of the work-life balance conditions faced by employed women and a window of opportunity created by men's increased participation in unpaid work.

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The economic crisis of the eurozone emerged after the subprime mortgage crisis of the US; and since then the fiscal profligacy of some member countries, primarily Greece at the outset, was seen as the root of the crisis. However, alternative approaches pointed to the current-account imbalances within the eurozone, and the flaws in the architecture of the eurozone system. In this study, based on the argument that these flaws and resulting trade imbalances had been responsible for a credit-fueled asset-price speculation among deficit countries, we aim to establish empirically the close association of asset-price growth with credit creation. As imbalances continued, asset prices grew dependent on credit expansion, and once it was disrupted, the collapse came. For our purpose, we examine the impacts of credit expansion on asset prices and use dynamic panel estimations for eleven countries in the eurozone over the period 1990–2011. We find that the credit expansion and asset prices are closely associated in countries with chronic trade deficits whereas no significant correlation is observed for countries with trade surpluses.

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