Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK; IZA, Bonn, Germany.
Soc Sci Med. 2022 Jan;292:114637. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114637. Epub 2021 Dec 6.
The economic impact of COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities in society, but disability has been neglected. This paper contributes to this knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of the differential labour market impact of COVID-19 by disability in the UK. Using data from the Labour Force Survey before and during the pandemic it estimates disability gaps in pre-pandemic risk factors, as well as changes in labour market inequality nearly one year on. Disabled workers are found to face higher COVID-19-related economic and health risks, including being more likely to work in 'shutdown' industries, and in occupations with greater proximity to others and exposure to disease. However, established measures of inequality, including the disability employment and pay gap suggest limited impact of COVID-19 in 2020. Nevertheless, the increase in the probability of being temporarily away from work, even among otherwise comparable workers, is 40% higher for disabled workers and consistent with disproportionate use of the government's job retention scheme. While the reasons for this are likely to be complex, there is a risk that it will contribute to future disability-related labour market inequality.
新冠疫情对经济的影响加剧了社会不平等，而残疾问题却被忽视了。本文通过分析英国新冠疫情对残疾人士劳动力市场的差异化影响，填补了这一知识空白。该研究使用了疫情前和疫情期间劳动力调查的数据，估计了残疾人士在疫情前风险因素方面的差距，以及近一年来劳动力市场不平等的变化。研究发现，残疾工人面临着更高的与新冠疫情相关的经济和健康风险，包括更有可能在“关闭”行业工作，以及在与他人更接近和更容易接触疾病的职业中工作。然而，包括残疾就业和薪酬差距在内的既定不平等衡量标准表明，2020 年新冠疫情的影响有限。尽管如此，即使是在其他方面可比的工人中，残疾工人暂时离开工作的可能性增加了 40%，这与政府保留工作岗位计划的不成比例使用是一致的。虽然造成这种情况的原因可能很复杂，但存在未来残疾相关劳动力市场不平等加剧的风险。
