What is it about?
This paper examines differences in employment among foreign- and native-born workers by race/ethnicity during the COVID-19 epidemic from January 2020 to December 2021. Immigrant men and women experienced greater declines in employment than non-immigrants of the same race/ethnicity when both were compared to native-born Whites, but their disadvantage was limited to the initial months of the epidemic. Ethnoracial and immigrant status disparities were substantially reduced by the fall of 2020, except for Hispanic immigrant men and women, who still experienced substantial employment gaps with their native-born White counterparts.
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Why is it important?
The COVID-19 epidemic resulted in a dramatic contraction in employment in the U.S., but the effects of this contraction have been unevenly distributed. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering the nexus between race/ethnicity and immigrant status in employment outcomes. We also considered several alternative explanations for the observed ethnoracial and immigrant status disparities in employment, including differences in education, the concentration of minority and immigrant workers in industries and occupations that suffered steeper employment declines, or regional differences in the intensity of the epidemic.
Perspectives
We found that the ethnoracial disparities in employment during the epidemic were less long-lasting than in past recessions, with the notable exception of the gap between Hispanic and White men, which persisted throughout 2020.
Kristin Liao
University of California Los Angeles
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unequal effects of the COVID-19 epidemic on employment: Differences by immigrant status and race/ethnicity, PLOS One, November 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277005.
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