Professor Susan Parker, PhD candidate Cynthia Boruchowicz and MPP student Lindsay Robbins’ paper “Time Use of Youth during a Pandemic: Evidence from Mexico” was selected for poster presentation at the Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2020 “Demographic Aspects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Consequences” in Vienna. The conference will start Monday, 30th November and conclude on Tuesday 1st, 2020.
Abstract:
We study the impact of school closures product of the COVID-19 pandemic on time use of Mexican teenagers between 12 and 18 years old in three activities: studies, work outside the household and household chores. We use micro level data from the 2019 and 2020 National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE) and the Phone Occupation and Employment Survey (ETOE) of April-May 2020. We find that compared to what was observed before the pandemic, after schools closed the time adolescents spent studying decreased by 30%. Although the reduction observed is similar for men and women, it is substantially greater for rural teenagers compared to urban ones, and for those in high school compared to middle school. We also observe that the hours dedicated to work outside the home decreased substantially with the onset of the pandemic, mainly for men, but that there is no much difference in household chores.