Which Workers are Most Exposed to covid-19 and Social Distancing Effects in a Dual Labour Market?

Abstract

This paper provides evidence for the different potential effects of covid-19 on formal and informal employment, using the work-from-home (Dingel & Neiman, 2020; Saltiel, 2020) and the proximity occupation approaches (Mongey et al., 2020) in Colombia. We found that only 13 % of informal employment positions can be performed from home (remotely) and that the figure for formal employment is twice as large (20 %). We recoded the  raw occupational responses of the Colombian Household Survey to a granular level to directlycombine occupational information from two sources: O*net and step. We then calculated work-from-home estimates, extracting cohesive results from both sources. We investigated how personal and household characteristics relate to work-from-home and proximity and provide sound evidence for a larger effect on the informal population and its association with vulnerability (lower income and education levels, no internet access, poorworking conditions). Standard employment policies will not impact directly on the most vulnerable populations in developing countries where informal employment is the norm.