Conference Paper
Where Have All the Mothers Gone? COVID and Mothers Leaving the Labor Force in Egypt
No.
ERF32AC_62
Publisher
ERF
Date
May, 2026
Topic
J. Labor and Demographic Economics
This paper looks at the effect of COVID on the gender gap in labor market outcomes in Egypt, where the female employment rate has chronically been low. Using data from Labor Force Surveys in Egypt (2017-2021), we calculate the difference-in-differences (DD) in the employment rate, weekly hours worked, and labor earnings between men and women before and after COVID to estimate the COVID effect on gender gaps. We then estimate a triple differences (DDD) estimator separating out the effect for mothers, using men and childless women as two different control groups. DD estimates show a significant worsening of the gender gap in employment and weekly hours worked after COVID. Our DDD estimates, however, show that for women without children these gaps remain stable. The comparison of the DD and DDD results suggests that the worsening of gender gaps is largely explained by a significant drop in the employment of mothers, over and above any changes for childless women. Among mothers, the gap widens more for mothers of school-age children, and the number of children is inversely related to mothers’ employment. A large age difference between the youngest and oldest child is protective of mothers’ employment. On the intensive margin, COVID’s labor market effects fell disproportionately on Egyptian women, whose hours of work declined more than men’s. The effect was especially sharp for mothers, as their labor supply also fell on the extensive margin. Our findings suggest this loss of employment is largely due to the added childcare burden during COVID, which exacerbated an already highly gendered distribution of unpaid care work.