Man-cessions, fiscal policy, and the gender composition of employment

Abstract

In recessions, predominantly men lose their jobs, which has given rise to the term ”mancessions”. We analyze whether fiscal expansions bring men back into jobs. To do so, we estimate vector-autoregressive models and identify the effects of fiscal shocks and non-fiscal shocks on the gender composition of employment. We show that contractionary non-fiscal shocks lead to man-cessions, i.e. employment falls and more strongly so for men. By contrast, an expansionary fiscal shock predominantly raises the employment of women. Taken together, these results imply a trade-off dilemma for policy that seeks to stabilize the level of employment along with its composition.