Work Package 3: Inequalities & the Resilience of Employment

WP3 investigates the interaction between economic and health inequalities before, during and after epidemic outbreaks in the past.

How did inequalities in the economic impact of epidemics mirror pre-existing inequalities? How did economic inequalities interact with health-inequalities and how did inequalities in economic impact affect societal resilience?

EPIBEL WP3 analyzes the labour market before, during and after the epidemic outbreak. For different types of labour and different regional contexts, indices of employment will be reconstructed, distinguishing minimally between the number of people employed, the wage-mass, the type of employment, and the average earnings per employee for the ten-year period before, during and after the epidemic.

We will do so combining data from the official monitoring of the labour market (for COVID-19, the 1918/19 flu and – to a lesser extent – 1866 cholera) with a more in-depth analysis for a sample of cities and rural regions, reconstructing changes in employment combining wage administrations, (real-) wages, and social tables on the distribution of income.