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The Impact of U.S. School Closures on Labor Market Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

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  • Kairon Shayne D. Garcia
  • Benjamin W. Cowan

Abstract

A substantial fraction of k-12 schools in the United States closed their in-person operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. These closures may have altered the labor supply decisions of parents of affected children due to a need to be at home with children during the school day. In this paper, we examine the impact of school closures on parental labor market outcomes. We test whether COVID-19 school closures have a disproportionate impact on parents of school-age children (ages 5-17 years old). Our results show that both women’s and men’s work lives were affected by school closures, with both groups seeing a reduction in work hours and the likelihood of working full-time but only women being less likely to work at all. We also find that closures had a corresponding negative effect on the earnings of parents of school-aged children. These effects are concentrated among parents without a college degree and parents working in occupations that do not lend themselves to telework, suggesting that such individuals had a more difficult time adjusting their work lives to school closures.

Suggested Citation

  • Kairon Shayne D. Garcia & Benjamin W. Cowan, 2022. "The Impact of U.S. School Closures on Labor Market Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 29641, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29641
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    Cited by:

    1. Miguel Faria-e-Castro & Samuel Jordan-Wood, 2024. "Pandemic Labor Force Participation and Net Worth Fluctuations," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 106(1), pages 40-58, January.
    2. Price, Brendan & Wasserman, Melanie, 2022. "The Summer Drop in Female Employment," CEPR Discussion Papers 17354, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    3. Dain Lee & Jinhyeok Park & Yongseok Shin, 2024. "Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 106(1), pages 59-71, January.
    4. Maria Paola & Salvatore Lattanzio, 2025. "Parental labor market penalties during two years of COVID-19," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 327-355, March.
    5. Kronenberg, Christoph & Gerdtham, Ulf-Göran & Karlsson, Martin, 2025. "Remote Schooling during the Pandemic: A Double Burden for Working Parents in Sweden?," CINCH Working Paper Series (since 2020) 83571, Duisburg-Essen University Library, DuEPublico.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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