Fired and Pregnant: Gender Differences in Job Flexibility Outcomes After Job Loss

Abstract

We study whether women and men cope with job loss differently, focusing on the importance of workers' job flexibility and household setting. Our empirical analysis is based on Dutch administrative monthly micro data over the period 2006-2017 using a quasi-experimental design involving job loss following firm bankruptcy. We find for displaced women, but not for displaced men, a persistence in job flexibilities involving limited working hours and short commutes. Importantly, job loss results in a smaller loss in hourly wages and longer unemployment for women, narrowing the gender wage gap but widening the gender employment gap. Also, we show that female workers who are pregnant when job loss occurs experience large losses in employment and conditional on re-employment take up a flexible job. Policy advice is to put a safety net in place to protect pregnant women against the long-term consequences of job loss.

The Impact of Economic Shocks on Workers' Labor Market Outcomes

“…Exploring this result in more detail, Meekes and Hassink (2020) show that displaced women are more likely to reduce hours worked and their commuting distance after job loss, suggesting that they particularly value flexibility in working conditions. Meekes and Hassink (2020) argue that women's longer unemployment duration suggests that they extended the job search period to find a job allowing more flexibility. This holds in particular for women who are pregnant at time of job loss.…”

“…Existing research has documented that such a shock can lead to long-lasting earnings losses for displaced workers (e.g., Jacobson et al (1993), Couch and Placzek (2010), Davis and von Wachter (2011), Lachowska et al (2020), Schmieder et al (2020)) but studies focusing on women and migrants are scarce. Chapters 3 and 4 thus contribute to the emerging literature analyzing costs of job loss by worker type (e.g., Meekes and Hassink (2020), Blien et al (2020)) and investigate these heterogeneities.…”

“…Other research has shown that costs of job loss are highly cyclical, meaning that displaced workers particularly suffer from displacement in economic downturns (e.g., Davis and von Wachter (2011) and Schmieder et al (2020)). Most of the displacement literature so far has focused on men, but more and more papers are exploring heterogeneity across worker types (e.g., Blien et al (2020) and Meekes and Hassink (2020)).…”

“…Recent papers, however, acknowledge that costs of job loss can differ dramatically by worker type. In this subsection, I introduce three of them: Blien et al (2020) explore heterogeneity in costs of job displacement by an occupation's routine intensity, Helm et al (2021) focus on differences by low-and high-wage workers in the manfacturing sector, and Meekes and Hassink (2020) study heterogeneity by gender. Note that this is also the part of the job displacement literature to which I contribute to with Chapters 3 and 4 of this thesis.…”

“…Another type of heterogeneity recent research explores is differences in costs of job loss by gender (see also Chapter 3 of this thesis). Meekes and Hassink (2020) use Dutch administrative data in 2006-2017 to explore differences in how men and women react to job loss following a firm bankruptcy. They find that women experience longer unemployment durations after displacement.…”