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Early estimates of the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on jobs, wages, and lifetime earnings of schoolchildren in Australia

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  • Gigi Foster

    (University of New South Wales)

Abstract

What effects have the Australian COVID-19 disruptions had on our present and future labour force? In the first part of this paper, I document the effects of the disruptions on current jobs and wages in Australia from the March through May period of 2020 – by income level, gender, age, and industry – drawing on the monthly labour force survey and the ABS’s new Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia survey. I find that the lockdowns have disproportionately affected both jobs and wages in certain industries, and have been regressive in their substantially different impacts on workers of different ages, with mid-life workers by far the least affected and young workers disproportionately likely to have dropped out of the labour force. I also find that the government’s JobKeeper program is likely to have had a major, if short-term, impact on job preservation and income levels. In the second part of the paper, I draw on state-level data on school closures over the same period to estimate the amount of pupil-days that have been disrupted due to the lockdowns, and then apply standard estimates from the economics of education literature of the correspondence between length of schooling and wages to estimate the wage losses expected to eventuate under different assumptions about how effective online learning is relative to school-based learning. Conservative estimates indicate losses of between AUD$50 million and AUD$100 million from coronavirus-related schooling disruptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Gigi Foster, 2020. "Early estimates of the impact of COVID-19 disruptions on jobs, wages, and lifetime earnings of schoolchildren in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 23(2), pages 129-151.
    • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:23:y:2020:i:2:p:129-151
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Béland, Louis-Philippe & Brodeur, Abel & Wright, Taylor, 2020. "The Short-Term Economic Consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to Disease, Remote Work and Government Response," GLO Discussion Paper Series 524, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Louis‐Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2022. "The short‐term economic consequences of COVID‐19: Occupation tasks and mental health in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 214-247, February.
    3. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Occupation Tasks and Mental Health in Canada," Carleton Economic Papers 20-07, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 30 Jun 2020.
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    Cited by:

    1. Leonora Risse & Angela Jackson, 2021. "A gender lens on the workforce impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 24(2), pages 111-144.
    2. Kabir Dasgupta & Alexander Plum, 2022. "Skills, Economic Crises and the Labour Market," Working Papers 2022-01, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Covid-19; foregone wages; unemployment; JobKeeper; school closures; online learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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