The Gender Gap in Income and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ireland

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper “The gender gap in income and the Covid-19 pandemic” analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender income inequality in Ireland. By nowcasting existing micro-data the authors estimate the drivers of gender income inequality prior the Covid-19 pandemic as well as over the course of the pandemic in Ireland. They show that the Covid-19 pandemic had a asymmetric impact on the labour market.

The authors show that the gender gap in market incomes remained stable at 40% over the observed time-period. However, prior to the pandemic, the tax-benefit system was reducing the gender income gap from 40% to 35%, while this cushioning effect doubled during the pandemic. The authors show that especially taxes played a very important role as an automatic stabiliser and in redistributing between men and women during the pandemic.

There are relatively few studies analyzing the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on income-related disparities by socio-demographic groups, and especially by gender. Therefore, I think this paper definitely contributes and adds new insights to the existing literature. The analysis is well executed and the paper is well written. However, I have some minor comments that would in my opinion improve the paper.

General comments:

Given that the impact might differ substantially across countries, I would suggest to add Ireland in the title.

What is the impact of the assumption of benefit sharing among households? Given this is an important assumption, I think a short paragraph discussing the impact should be added.

What is the take-away for other countries? Are there other countries with similar studies? A short paragraph in the conclusion answering both questions would improve the paper in my opinion.

Minor comments:

P1 ”Ireland is a country with a significant and recent history of progress in gender equal-ity but one which still retains a sizable gender wage and gender work gap.” Could you please cite some studies that show this.

P15 In Table 1 information on male and female is missing. Please add this to the table!

P18 and P19 References broken!

P19 “In the case of Ireland, the gender division of occupation and industry actually benefitted women. Their representation in essential roles outweighed their representation in locked-down roles.” It would be good to see whether this is Ireland-specific or a common pattern.

P15 and 16 average wages = average hourly wages Please check for consistency in the paper, see also, e. g.

P20 ”Average wages of men and women were very similar prior to the pandemic but these decreased more among women than men during the first wave of the pandemic.” Which average wages? Hourly? Weekly?

P24 Table A2 Average hourly wage rate?

 

 

Overall, I really enjoyed reading the paper and hope that my comments will help to improve it in the near future.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very competent paper. Methods and results are very clearly described. I have only a few rather  specific, and a few very general comments.

Specific comments: ,

- p. 3 please mention the age range to which the activity and employment rates quoted refer.

- p. 3 what is market income? (This is explained later, but should be briefly elucitated here.)

- p. 4 perhaps there should be a brief discussion about how effective these measures where to protect everyone. E.g. what happened to people with intermittent employment, who happened to be out of work when Covid hit Ireland? In some countries, such persons were strongly affected.

- p. 6 "Its latest release ..." at the time of analysis.

- p. 11 "this individual approach ... measure which represents potential income (consumption, bargaining etc.) inequality." This argument is not fully convincing to me. I think looking at individual incomes of people within couples can be defended on the ground that those incomes represent individual autonomy and control.

- p. 14 ff. The age range to which the simulation and the results apply should be mentioned, preferably at each table and figure. I suspect it is the population at active age, but this is not made clear, as far as I can see.

- p. 20 "higher scarring of female wages ..." scarring by what, exactly?

General questions:

- Why is the gender income gap *during the Covid crisis* relevant? One might argue that it was a temporary phenomenon, which is already a thing of the past.

- Why is the *gender income gap* during the Covid crisis relevant? Many income gaps were affected, including those between the young and the old, those with more and less education, immigrants and natives. Why focus on the gender income gap? Also, the focus on individual income (which is in itself valid) prevents an answer to the question to what extent the reductions in income were reinforced or mitigated on the couple or household level

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Research on income distribution inequality is extremely important. Therefore, the research conducted by the authors is welcome. Unfortunately, I have a certain dissatisfaction, apart from the perfectly presented analysis and research methodology, there is a lack of clear discussion and recommendations resulting from the research. There is a lack of attention to the fact that income redistribution within households is or may be differentiated (as mentioned by R. Lister). The author did not point this out, and the research results may not show this, due to the fact that many studies look at the household as a whole.

 

There is a lack of comparison of the results of the research with others conducted in the world, among which can be distinguished, for example, A. Łuczak and S. Kalinowski, R. Śpiewak, A. Karwacki, R. Szarfenberg.

 

The purpose of the research and the research questions posed should also be clearly indicated. 

 

I have a feeling that the authors are not surprised by the results, do not pose open questions and do not try to open wickets for further analysis. It is worth showing that the presented results are conditioned not only by the current situation, but above all by the worse position on the labor market, but also in the social life of women. Which in the XXI century is still a sad reality.

 

It is necessary to review the literature on the subject, indicating which publications coincide with the authors' research, and which contradict it.

 

I found the article itself to be extremely valuable and worthy of further study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I accept Article im this form