Physical school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, while necessary to contain the spread of the virus, also led to significant learnings losses and an increase in the socioeconomic inequality in learning outcomes. The JRC studied the consequences of the loss of human capital, which are likely to affect the economy and labour market in the upcoming years unless remedied.
The lockdowns and other confinement measures by disrupting businesses that relied on in-person interaction and changing working conditions in essential sectors. The JRC estimated the impact of the confinement measures on employment and working conditions, as well as the number and profiles of jobs that could work remotely (or telework), and their working condition during lockdowns.
The effect of the COVID-19 disruption on education and training
For many students and teachers around the world, the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 meant a sudden and rapid transition from in-class instruction to remote schooling and a fundamental change in the way pupils interact with their teachers and with one another.
The JRC has studied the consequences of the sudden shift to online learning. These studies find that the pandemic had, on average, a negative effect on learning, comparable in magnitude to the consequences of a disruption in schooling following a major natural disaster (such as Hurricane Katrina). One year after the initial lockdown, students seemed unable to catch up on unfinished learning from the pandemic. In addition, the learning loss was not equally distributed among students, with some students suffering more than others. For example, girls were found to perceive changes in their learning less favourably than otherwise comparable boys.
A JRC report on the likely impact of the COVID-19 on education early in the pandemic had anticipated that schooling disruption would exacerbate preexisting socioeconomic gaps in learning outcomes. This was confirmed by a qualitative study on remote schooling practices during the 2020 lockdown, which showed that full-time remote education would aggrave the existing inequalities in education, given the state and accessibility of equipment for digital learning.
The pandemic also affected international student exchanges: a JRC study shows that intentions to study abroad declined during the pandemic among tertiary education students. In the UK, for instance, the number of university applications from foreign students in the summer and autumn of 2020 decreased by more than 10% in comparison with the period 2011 – 2019. On a more positive note, while participation in adult learning decreased during the pandemic, at least some part of the decrease was compensated by an increase in participation in online courses. Women, individuals aged 55 to 64, and less educated adults were especially likely to sign up.
The impact of COVID-19 on employment
As the pandemic and the confinement measures implemented to contain it disrupted the world of work in 2020, there was an urgent need to understand their impact on employment and working conditions.
The JRC estimated that vulnerable and disadvantaged workers were the worst affected by the confinement measures, and that sectoral closures had a higher impact in some Southern European Member States, the UK and Ireland, where the share of sectors forcefully closed was higher. Following the legislative measures adopted to contain COVID in three EU Member States (Italy, Spain and Germany), these studies classified all economic sectors into different categories according to the likely impact of the COVID crisis, and compared the share of employment that was likely to be strongly affected in each country.
The pandemic and related confinement measures also resulted in an unprecedented number of employees working from home. JRC research provides estimates on the potential and uptake of telework during and after the 2020 lockdowns. Working from home was relatively rare even among office workers before the pandemic, and has become more common across different occupations, though there remain systematic inequalities in access across countries and socio-economic profiles. The JRC also conducted and commissioned studies on the impact of mass remote work during the pandemic on work organisation and working conditions.
- Bertoletti, Alice, Cannistrà, Marta, Soncin, Mara, and Agasisti, Tomaso. (2023) The heterogeneity of Covid-19 learning loss across Italian primary and middle schools. Economics of Education Review 95: 102435, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102435
- Di Pietro, Giorgio. (2023) The impact of COVID-19 on student achievement: Evidence from a recent meta-analysis. Educational Research Review 39: 100530, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100530
- Bertoletti A., Soncin M., Cannistrà M., and Agasisti T. (2023) The educational effects of emergency remote teaching practices – The case of COVID-19 school closure in Italy. PLOS ONE 18(1): e0280494. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0280494
- Bertoletti, A., Biagi, F., Di Pietro, G. and Karpiński, Z. The effect of the COVID-19 disruption on the gender gap in students’ performance: a cross-country analysis. Large-scale Assessments in Education, 11, 6 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-023-00154-y
- Di Pietro, G. (2023). COVID-19 and intentions to study abroad: Evidence from overseas university applications to the UK, Higher Education Evaluation and Development (ahead-of-print).https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/HEED-11-2021-0080/full/html
- Cachia, R., Velicu, A., Chaudron, S., Di Gioia, R. and Vuorikari, R., Emergency remote schooling during COVID-19, EUR 30866 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-42550-2, doi:10.2760/613798, JRC125787
- Carretero Gomez, S., Napierala, J., Bessios, A., Mägi, E., Pugacewicz, A., Ranieri, M., Triquet, K., Lombaerts, K., Robledo Bottcher, N., Montanari, M. and Gonzalez Vazquez, I., What did we learn from schooling practices during the COVID-19 lockdown, EUR 30559 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-28418-5, doi:10.2760/135208, JRC123654.
- Di Pietro, G. and Karpiński, Z., COVID-19 and online adult learning, EUR 30934 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-45989-7, doi:10.2760/886741, JRC126993.
- Di Pietro, G., Biagi, F., Dinis Mota Da Costa, P., Karpiński, Z. and Mazza, J., The likely impact of COVID-19 on education: Reflections based on the existing literature and recent international datasets, EUR 30275 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2020, ISBN 978-92-76-19937-3, doi:10.2760/126686, JRC121071.
- Fana, M., Massimo, S. F., Moro, A., Autonomy and Control in Mass Remote Working during the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Cross-Occupational Comparison, Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations 77 (3) 2022.
- Eurofound and European Commission Joint Research Centre (2021), What just happened? COVID-19 lockdowns and change in the labour market, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.
- Sostero M., Milasi S., Hurley J., Fernández-Macías E., Bisello M., Teleworkability and the COVID-19 crisis: a new digital divide?, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/05, European Commission, Seville, 2020, JRC121193.
- Data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7716456
- Code: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7716420
- Corral, A. and Isusi, I., Impact of the COVID-19 confinement measures on telework in Spain, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/08, European Commission, Seville, 2020, JRC122651.
- Massimo, F.S., Impact of the Covid-19 confinement measures on telework – qualitative survey for France, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/09, European Commission, Seville, 2020, JRC122669.
- Moro, A., Impact of the COVID-19 Confinement Measures on Telework in Italy. A Qualitative Survey, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/10, European Commission, Seville, 2020, JRC122730.
- Fana, M., Milasi, S., Napierala, J., Fernandez Macias, E. and Gonzalez Vazquez, I.,Telework, work organisation and job quality during the COVID-19 crisis: a qualitative study, JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2020/11, European Commission, Seville, 2020, JRC122591.
- Fana, M., Torrejón Pérez, S. & Fernández-Macías, E. Employment impact of Covid-19 crisis: from short term effects to long terms prospects. J. Ind. Bus. Econ. 47, 391–410 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40812-020-00168-5
- Torrejón Pérez, S., González-Vázquez, I., Fana, M. and Fernández-Macías, E. (2020), The impact of COVID confinement measures on EU labour market. Science for Policy Briefs, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, JRC120585.
- Milasi, S., Hurley, J., Bisello, M., González-Vázquez, I and Fernández-Macías, E. (2020),Who can telework today? The teleworkability of occupations in the EU. Science for Policy Briefs, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, JRC121426.
- Milasi, S., González-Vázquez, I. and Fernández-Macías, E. (2020), Telework in the EU before and after the COVID-19: where we were, where we head to. Science for Policy Briefs, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, JRC120945.
- Torrejón Pérez, S., Fernández-Macías, E., González-Vazquez, I. and Fana, M. (2020), The asymmetric impact of COVID-19 confinement measures on EU labour markets. VOXEU/ CEPR.
- Fana, M., Tolan, S., Torrejon Perez, S., Urzi Brancati, M.C. and Fernandez Macias, E., The COVID confinement measures and EU labour markets, EUR 30190 EN 30190 IT, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2020, ISBN 978-92-76-18812-4, doi:10.2760/079230, JRC120578.
