IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fec/journl/v15y2020i4p521-540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unintended Consequences of Lockdowns: Evidence from Domestic Helpers in Urban China

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaobo He

    (School of Business, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai 201620, China; The Centre for Global Food and Resources, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia)

  • Fang Xiao

    (School of Business, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai 201620, China)

Abstract

This paper addresses the reactions of domestic helpers to the Wuhan (Hubei Province) lockdown that began on January 23, 2020. We use a novel dataset containing the information of over 40,000 Chinese domestic helpers registered on a leading professional website from November 2019 to June 2020. The results indicate a declining pattern of short-term labor supply of domestic helpers across 11 major Chinese cities, which shows an increase in the expected monthly wage of domestic helpers in these cities. More importantly, using a difference-in-difference (DID) model, this paper provides some evidence on the existence of labor market discrimination against domestic helpers born in Hubei Province due to employers¡¯ fear of infection.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaobo He & Fang Xiao, 2020. "Unintended Consequences of Lockdowns: Evidence from Domestic Helpers in Urban China," Frontiers of Economics in China-Selected Publications from Chinese Universities, Higher Education Press, vol. 15(4), pages 521-540, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:fec:journl:v:15:y:2020:i:4:p:521-540
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journal.hep.com.cn/fec/EN/10.3868/s060-011-020-0022-0
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19); pandemic; domestic helpers; urban; China; labor supply; expected wage; labor market; discrimination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fec:journl:v:15:y:2020:i:4:p:521-540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Frank H. Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.