Actual challenges of labor market and their gender implications for employment

Abstract

The main research issues discussed in the article concern the impact of technological and epidemiological challenges on the employment of women and men, as well as the reasons for their asymmetric impact on employees depending on gender. The choice of these two challenges is determined, on the one hand, by their relevance, and on the other, by the fact that, although they are fundamentally different in both character and duration of their impact on the labor market, the consequences of their impact on women’s employment are the same and in both cases lead to job losses. The article shows that the same consequences for women’s employment from such different challenges are not accidental. This is due to the fact that the causes and risk factors of priority job loss for women as a result of the technological and epidemiological challenges are identical, since they are based on gender segregation of employment in the labor market, which divides jobs and entire industries into «male» and «female». In the technological challenge, the reason for the priority and more widespread loss of jobs by women is due to the fact that they are more often than men engaged in routine work in which is a large proportion of repetitive operations that are easy to automate and delegate to robots or artificial intelligence (AI). During the epidemiological challenge, more “female” than “male” jobs fell into the risk zone of unemployment, because as a result of self-isolation most enterprises and organizations in the service sphere, such as shopping centers, hairdressers and beauty salons, hotels and boarding houses, museums and libraries were closed, as well as airports and travel agencies — and all these enterprises employed mainly women. On account of the high risk of unemployment, these activities were included in the “List of economy sectors most affected by coronavirus” developed by the Government to provide priority targeted support. However, according to the information from the Ministry of Finance, less than a fifth of the service sector organizations and individual entrepreneurs will be able to receive this assistance, and therefore it is unlikely to avoid an increase in female unemployment.