London School of Economics and Political Science

Academic Institute

2001457

This project builds upon work done under UKRI grant ES/V010433/1. The purpose of our project is to document emerging educational and labour market inequalities caused by Covid-19. We will document differences in labour market and education outcomes by age, family background, and place that have resulted from restrictions on economic activity and disruptions to schooling. In order to provide consistent measures of labour market and learning losses since the first lockdown, we will utilise, and harmonise, multiple data sources. Because of the unique circumstances of the last year, we will provide measurements that go beyond official statistics and provide a more informative picture of outcomes. For instance, our measure of employment – which, we term the ‘realistic’ employment rate – will account for those working zero hours due to the furlough scheme. Similarly, we will measure learning losses accounting for school closures, persistent absences during the autumn term, and differences in home learning environments. This will enable a fuller, more detailed picture of nationwide social mobility and inequality in the crisis to be developed, looking at issues of pressing national concern for the general public, policymakers and practitioners: job losses for working age adults and learning losses in full-time education and school

While our work will be written up as an academic paper, we will also produce briefings that are comprehensible, and of interest, to the general public. We see distributional consequences and the effect on the young, who will potentially feel the economic effects of Covid for decades to come, as being key considerations in forming a suitable policy response to the economic fallout from the pandemic. Given this, we hope that our work will be used as an input into the policy debate surrounding the appropriate response to Covid-19.

18/03/2021

TRE