Table 4.
Demographic and labor market characteristics of essential and frontline workers March v. December 2020
| Panel A: demographic characteristics by group | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % Female | % White | % Black | % Hispanic | % Asian | % Other Race | % Immigrant | % Single Mother | % < HS | % HS | % Some College | % BA or higher | |
| All | 0.47 | 0.62 | 0.12 | 0.18 | 0.06 | 0.03 | 0.19 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.24 | 0.31 | 0.35 |
| March 2020—Essential | 0.44 | 0.60 | 0.12 | 0.19 | 0.06 | 0.03 | 0.20 | 0.08 | 0.10 | 0.27 | 0.33 | 0.30 |
| March 2020—Essential excl. Shutdown | 0.44 | 0.62 | 0.12 | 0.18 | 0.06 | 0.03 | 0.19 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.26 | 0.32 | 0.33 |
| March 2020—Frontline | 0.39 | 0.57 | 0.13 | 0.22 | 0.05 | 0.03 | 0.22 | 0.08 | 0.14 | 0.33 | 0.34 | 0.19 |
| March 2020—Frontline excl. Shutdown | 0.38 | 0.58 | 0.13 | 0.22 | 0.05 | 0.03 | 0.21 | 0.08 | 0.13 | 0.32 | 0.33 | 0.21 |
| December 2020—Essential | 0.46 | 0.62 | 0.12 | 0.18 | 0.06 | 0.03 | 0.19 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.25 | 0.31 | 0.34 |
| December 2020—Frontline | 0.43 | 0.58 | 0.13 | 0.21 | 0.05 | 0.03 | 0.21 | 0.08 | 0.13 | 0.30 | 0.32 | 0.26 |
| Panel B: Occupational characteristics by group | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female dominated Occ | Male dominated Occ | Hourly wages ($) | % Low wage | % High wage | N | % All | |
| All | 0.28 | 0.30 | $27.05 | 0.25 | 0.25 | 3,042,378 | |
| March 2020—Essential | 0.26 | 0.35 | $27.10 | 0.24 | 0.25 | 2,128,330 | 70.0% |
| March 2020—Essential excluding Shutdown | 0.26 | 0.37 | $28.42 | 0.22 | 0.27 | 1,809,150 | 59.5% |
| March 2020—Frontline | 0.26 | 0.44 | $22.76 | 0.30 | 0.18 | 1,301,854 | 42.8% |
| March 2020—Frontline excluding Shutdown | 0.24 | 0.48 | $24.00 | 0.27 | 0.20 | 1,025,969 | 33.7% |
| December 2020—Essential | 0.28 | 0.31 | $27.03 | 0.24 | 0.25 | 2,481,637 | 81.6% |
| December 2020—Frontline | 0.29 | 0.38 | $23.16 | 0.29 | 0.19 | 1,578,959 | 51.9% |
This table lists demographic and occupational characteristics of essential and frontline workers. Essential workers are identified by mapping official industry guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 28, 2020 and December 16, 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey. Frontline workers are approximated by their feasibility of work from home in the worker’s occupation group (Dingel and Neiman 2020). Shutdown adjusts for industries that were shutdown or running under limited demand early in the COVID crisis (Vavra 2020). Demographic charateristics consist of the share of females, racial background (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Other Race), immigrant status (foreign born), single mother, and highest educational attainment (less than High-School (HS), HS degree, some college, higher than Bachelor Degree (BA)). Labor market charateristics consist of the share of females, share of workers that work in predominantly female 4-digit occupations (70% or more of workers are female) or predominantly male 4-digit occupations (30% or less of the workers are female), hourly wages (income in 2019 dollars using the CPI divided by the product of usual hours worked per week and the mid-point of usual weeks worked per year), share of workers earning low wages (in the bottom quartile of the overall wage distribution) and high wages (in the top quartile of the overall wage distribution). Military is excluded as an occupation group, so share does not sum to 100