WIC Online Colloquium

Gretchen Stockmayer Donehower, University of California, Berkeley

The Gendered Economy in the United States Before, During and After(?) Covid19

June 4th 2020, 16:00-17:00 (CEST)

Abstract

Countries around the world have gendered economies: men and women and girls and boys specialize in different activities and produce and consume differently. This talk will begin with a description of the gendered economy in the United States, using estimates from the National Transfer Accounts and Counting Women’s Work projects. The division between household and market spheres of production is important in this story, with women taking a larger role in the production of unpaid care work in the household and men a larger role in market-based production of goods and services, although this specialization has been decreasing. With the household marking such an important border in the gendered economy, what has happened since the arrival of Covid19? Pandemic-related closures have shut down or curtailed the role of many institutions in the market economy and pushed much activity back inside the household. Many surveys have rushed into the field to measure how the gendered economy is responding. We will review results from some of these, including one conducted recently by Counting Women’s Work. Most of these results indicate that under pressure from Covid19-related closures, “traditional” patterns have reasserted themselves, erasing years of trend toward less economic segregation by gender. We will close discussing what this might mean for the gendered economy and economic recovery going forward.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seminar will be held online via Zoom. Please register online until one day before the presentation 10:00 (CEST): https://www.oeaw.ac.at/VID/Events/Calendar/WIC-Colloquium/registration/. Login information will be sent to registered participants the day before the presentation.

For more information please see the attached file.