Not All That It Seems : Narrowing of Gender Gaps in Employment during the Onset of COVID-19 in Indonesia

This paper studies the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indonesia’s labor market by exploitingthe exogeneous timing of the pandemic in a seasonal difference-in-differences framework. The analysis usesmultiple rounds of Indonesia’s National Labor Force Survey from 2016 to 2020 to establish a pre-pandemic employmenttrend and then attribute any excess difference in employment outcomes from this trend as the estimated effect of thepandemic on individual employment outcomes. The results suggest that the pandemic has had mixed effects on theIndonesian labor market. While the pandemic has narrowed the gender gaps in employment participation through the “addedworker effect” among women, it has also lowered the overall employment quality among both gender groups. The findingsshow that the increase in female employment is primarily driven by women in rural areas without high schooleducation, entering informal work, agricultural employment, or unpaid family work. For men, the pandemic has had adverseimpacts on their employment across the board in all sub-populations. Consistent with findings from otherstudies, steeper employment declines are observed in urbanareas, particularly among males. Among those employed, both women and men work fewer hours and earn lower wages.