‘Women more likely to be impacted by lockdown’

Women are about one third more likely to work in a sector that is now shut down than men, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The sectors include non-food retail, restaurants and hotels, passenger transport, personal services and arts and leisure services.

Because women disproportionately work in retail and hospitality, the IFS says COVID-19 is likely to have a bigger effect on their earnings. It says women are about one third more likely to work in a sector that is now shut down than men: one in six (17% of) female employees were in such sectors, compared to one in seven (13% of) male employees.

The analysis shows the lockdown will hit certain groups more than others, including young workers, those on low incomes and women.

The worst hit are likely to be young workers, with employees aged under 25 about two and a half times as likely to work in a sector that is now shut down as other employees. Low earners are seven times as likely as high earners to have worked in a sector that is now shut down, says the IFS. Fully one third of employees in the bottom tenth of the earnings distribution work in shut down sectors versus just 5% of those in the top 10%.

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