The impact of school disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic on parental labor supply and earnings in Australia
Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. o3/25
Date: June 2025
Author(s):
Abstract
We use quasi-experimental variation in suspension of in-person teaching at schools to estimate the causal impact of school disruptions on parents’ labor supply. School disruptions have a large negative effect on labor force participation, especially for women and for people with weaker labor force attachment. Conditional on remaining employed, school disruptions have no impact hours worked or on wages. Exploring potential mechanisms, we find that school disruptions sharply increase working from home, which can help explain our null effects, and point to even more negative effects on labor force participation in the absence of this margin of adjustment.