The gender inequality effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Nigerian labor market

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the Nigerian labor market, exacerbating existing inequalities and disrupting employment dynamics. This study provides a reliable overview of the time-varying effects of the pandemic on the Nigerian labor market. It deviates from previous works as it draws on a representative panel of adults in Nigeria that tracks them at baseline (2018/19) and in three rounds of the High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) during the COVID-19 pandemic (September 2020, February 2021, and March 2022), instead of using a larger panel that mainly comprises household heads, as past research has done. Hence, this paper challenges previous results on this country that underestimate the pervasive employment effects of the pandemic, given that household heads had better-off employment outcomes than the rest of the household members. The paper confirms that the pandemic negatively affected employment levels in Nigeria of those individuals already participating in the labor force before the pandemic. Women experienced more adverse employment reductions, and the presence of school-age children in households further hindered their employment. Gender inequality overlaps with other dimensions of inequality, exacerbating preexisting conditions of marginalization for women. Indeed, vulnerable groups, such as young women and those from the poorest pre-crisis consumption quantiles, were hardest hit. In short, the COVID-19 pandemic was far from an equalizer event.

Keywords: COVID-19, Gender inequality, Employment, Nigeria

JEL Classification: D63, I18, J16, J21, J22