IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v57y2025i50p8327-8345.html

The heterogeneous impact of uncertainty shocks on labour market outcomes for men and women

Author

Listed:
  • Todd Potts
  • Jennifer Roy

Abstract

This study examines whether innovations to macroeconomic uncertainty affect labour market outcomes for men and women differently. Findings reveal that increases in macroeconomic uncertainty lead to recessionary outcomes, with the unemployment rate for men rising higher than that for women if the uncertainty is related to financial markets or economic policy. There is slight evidence that men’s labour force participation declines more than women’s during such shocks, but the ratio of real earnings is largely unchanged. Variance decompositions reveal that over the full 1979–2023 sample, the variance in uncertainty is responsible for as much as 14% of the variance in the ratio of men’s to women’s unemployment rate. This percentage is found to be higher when using only pre-COVID data.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd Potts & Jennifer Roy, 2025. "The heterogeneous impact of uncertainty shocks on labour market outcomes for men and women," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(50), pages 8327-8345, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:50:p:8327-8345
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2024.2399811
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2024.2399811
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2024.2399811?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas Bloom, 2014. "Fluctuations in Uncertainty," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 153-176, Spring.
    2. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Hobijn, Bart & Şahin, Ayşegül, 2015. "On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-82.
    3. Carola Binder, 2020. "Coronavirus Fears and Macroeconomic Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(4), pages 721-730, October.
    4. Schaefer, Daniel & Singleton, Carl, 2019. "Cyclical labor costs within jobs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    5. Brinca, Pedro & Duarte, Joao B. & Faria-e-Castro, Miguel, 2021. "Measuring labor supply and demand shocks during COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    6. Kevin Moran & Dalibor Stevanovic & Adam Kader Touré, 2022. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and the COVID‐19 pandemic: Measure and impacts on the Canadian economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 379-405, February.
    7. Pries, Michael J., 2016. "Uncertainty-driven labor market fluctuations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 181-199.
    8. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Groshenny, Nicolas, 2014. "Uncertainty shocks and unemployment dynamics in U.S. recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-92.
    9. Moll, Benjamin & Kaplan, Greg & Violante, Giovanni, 2020. "The Great Lockdown and the Big Stimulus: Tracing the Pandemic Possibility Frontier for the U.S," CEPR Discussion Papers 15256, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    10. Stefania Albanesi & Aysegul Sahin, 2018. "The Gender Unemployment Gap," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 47-67, October.
    11. Ahir, Hites & Bloom, Nicholas & Furceri, Davide, 2022. "The world uncertainty index," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117833, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Altig, Dave & Baker, Scott & Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nicholas & Bunn, Philip & Chen, Scarlet & Davis, Steven J. & Leather, Julia & Meyer, Brent & Mihaylov, Emil & Mizen, Paul & Parker, Nicholas &, 2020. "Economic uncertainty before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    13. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis & Stephen J. Terry, 2020. "COVID-Induced Economic Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 26983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Peiró, Amado & Belaire-Franch, Jorge & Gonzalo, Maria Teresa, 2012. "Unemployment, cycle and gender," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1167-1175.
    15. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Lai, Kon S, 1995. "Lag Order and Critical Values of the Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(3), pages 277-280, July.
    16. Idriss Fontaine, 2021. "Uncertainty and Labour Force Participation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(2), pages 437-471, April.
    17. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Freund, Lukas B. & Rendahl, Pontus, 2021. "Volatile hiring: uncertainty in search and matching models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-18.
    18. Stefania Albanesi & Jiyeon Kim, 2021. "Effects of the COVID-19 Recession on the US Labor Market: Occupation, Family, and Gender," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 3-24, Summer.
    19. Hilary Hoynes & Douglas L. Miller & Jessamyn Schaller, 2012. "Who Suffers during Recessions?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 27-48, Summer.
    20. Giovanni Razzu & Carl Singleton, 2018. "Segregation and Gender Gaps in the United Kingdom's Great Recession and Recovery," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 31-55, October.
    21. Christian Bredemeier & Roland Winkler, 2017. "The employment dynamics of different population groups over the business cycle," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(26), pages 2545-2562, June.
    22. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2019. "Domestic and Global Uncertainty: A Survey and Some New Results," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2019n13, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    23. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    24. Joseph Marchand & Sara Olfert, 2013. "The US gender gap through the Great Recession using an alternative approach to cyclicality," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 276-281, February.
    25. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Juan Manuel Figueres, 2020. "Economic Policy Uncertainty Spillovers in Booms and Busts," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(1), pages 125-155, February.
    26. Kovalenko, Tim & Töpfer, Marina, 2021. "Cyclical dynamics and the gender pay gap: A structural VAR approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    27. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    28. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    29. Kyle Jurado & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Serena Ng, 2015. "Measuring Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1177-1216, March.
    30. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    31. Razzu, Giovanni & Singleton, Carl, 2016. "Gender and the business cycle: An analysis of labour markets in the US and UK," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 131-146.
    32. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    33. David Berger & Ian Dew-Becker & Stefano Giglio, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks as Second-Moment News Shocks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 40-76.
    34. Benjamin Born & Johannes Pfeifer, 2021. "Uncertainty‐driven business cycles: Assessing the markup channel," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), pages 587-623, May.
    35. Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen & Roland Winkler, 2023. "Bringing Back the Jobs Lost to Covid‐19: The Role of Fiscal Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1703-1747, October.
    36. Christopher L. Foote & Richard W. Ryan, 2015. "Labor-Market Polarization over the Business Cycle," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 371-413.
    37. Stefania Albanesi, 2025. "Changing Business Cycles: The Role of Women's Employment," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 345-390, October.
    38. Titan Alon & Matthias Doepke & Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, 2020. "This Time It's Different: The Role of Women's Employment in a Pandemic Recession," Working Papers 2020-057, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    39. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Bayer, Christian, 2013. "‘Wait-and-See’ business cycles?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 704-719.
    40. Ana Tribin & Karen García-Rojas & Paula Herrera-Idarraga & Leonardo Fabio Morales & Natalia Ramirez-Bustamante, 2023. "Shecession: The Downfall of Colombian Women During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 158-193, October.
    41. Bredemeier, Christian & Juessen, Falko & Winkler, Roland, 2017. "Man-cessions, fiscal policy, and the gender composition of employment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 73-76.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2023. "Uncertainty before and during COVID‐19: A survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 821-864, July.
    2. Lukas Freund & Hanbaek Lee & Pontus Rendahl, 2023. "The Risk-Premium Channel of Uncertainty: Implications for Unemployment and Inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 117-137, December.
    3. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Freund, Lukas B. & Rendahl, Pontus, 2021. "Volatile hiring: uncertainty in search and matching models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-18.
    4. Salah A. Nusair, 2025. "Economic policy uncertainty and industrial output in the G7 countries: an asymmetric analysis," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 58(5), pages 1-40, October.
    5. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    6. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo, 2023. "Global financial uncertainty," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 432-449, April.
    7. Kovalenko, Tim, 2021. "Uncertainty shocks and employment fluctuations in Germany: The role of establishment size," Discussion Papers 119, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    8. Josué Diwambuena & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2021. "The Real Effects of Uncertainty Shocks: New Evidence from Linear and Nonlinear SVAR Models," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS87, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    9. Stefan Schiman & Atanas Pekanov, 2020. "Uncertainty in the Euro Area During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 66708.
    10. Tim Kovalenko, 2021. "Uncertainty shocks and employment fluctuations in Germany: the role of establishment size," Working Papers 212, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    11. Miescu, Mirela & Rossi, Raffaele, 2021. "COVID-19-induced shocks and uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    12. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87, April.
    13. Rivolta, Giulia & Trecroci, Carmine, 2020. "Measuring the effects of U.S. uncertainty and monetary conditions on EMEs' macroeconomic dynamics," MPRA Paper 99403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Angus Moore, 2017. "Measuring Economic Uncertainty and Its Effects," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 550-575, December.
    15. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    16. Rendahl, Pontus & Freund, Lukas B., 2020. "Unexpected Effects: Uncertainty, Unemployment, and Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 14690, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Redl, Chris, 2020. "Uncertainty matters: Evidence from close elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    18. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Born, Benjamin & Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian, 2019. "Time-varying business volatility and the price setting of firms," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 82-99.
    19. Karaki, Mohamad B. & Rangaraju, Sandeep Kumar, 2023. "The confidence channel of U.S. financial uncertainty: Evidence from industry-level data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

    More about this item

    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:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:50:p:8327-8345. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    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.