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The Labor Market Impact of Covid-19 on Asian Americans

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Abstract

Asian Americans faced a disproportionately larger surge in unemployment rates than other racial and ethnic groups during the Covid-19 pandemic. While existing literature typically examines labor demand channels to explain this, we instead explore a labor supply channel. Our hypothesis is that Asian Americans are more cautious about Covid-19 infections and thus more selective about job opportunities, contributing to their higher unemployment rate than other groups. Analysis of cellphone data during the pandemic indicates that non-work mobility significantly decreased in areas with larger Asian populations, supporting our hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris de Mena & Suvy Qin & Jing Zhang, 2023. "The Labor Market Impact of Covid-19 on Asian Americans," Working Paper Series WP 2023-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:95998
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hunt Allcott & Levi Boxell & Jacob C. Conway & Billy A. Ferguson & Matthew Gentzkow & Benjamin Goldman, 2020. "What Explains Temporal and Geographic Variation in the Early US Coronavirus Pandemic?," NBER Working Papers 27965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ying Fan & A. Yeşim Orhun & Dana Turjeman, 2020. "Heterogeneous Actions, Beliefs, Constraints and Risk Tolerance During the COVID-19 Pandemic," NBER Working Papers 27211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Couch, Kenneth A. & Fairlie, Robert W. & Xu, Huanan, 2020. "The Impacts of COVID-19 on Minority Unemployment: First Evidence from April 2020 CPS Microdata," IZA Discussion Papers 13264, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    5. Armagan Gezici & Ozge Ozay, 2020. "An Intersectional Analysis of COVID-19 Unemployment," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 270-281, December.
    6. Bo E. Honoré & Luojia Hu, 2023. "The COVID-19 pandemic and Asian American employment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2053-2083, May.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

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