The COVID-19 Legacy: Building Toward Equality or Worsening Disparities?
April 23, 2024
The project is a collaboration of faculty at the Graduate School of Social Work, the Department of Economics, and the Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, that explores the impacts of COVID-19 on economic inequality and wellbeing in the United States and European Union.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequality as a direct consequence of underlying structural disparities—which exposed women and racially minoritized groups to greater burdens—and policy choices that did not effectively address social and economic gaps. The core of our project consists of an empirical analysis, which is used as a foundation for a critical and interdisciplinary assessment of the policy responses that have been introduced in the context of the pandemic and policy suggestions to help move towards social justice. We compare employment, wellbeing, and health outcomes in several US states, and between the US and the EU. An intersectional lens is used to identify how inequality has been impacted from the perspectives of labor sectors, gender, and race/ethnicity.
