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Summary of "Effects of countercyclical Policies on Women's and Men's Incomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic" (ECLAC, Gender Affairs Series No. 166)

• Introduction and Objectives: This report analyzes the gendered impact of countercyclical fiscal policies—including personal taxes, social contributions, and cash transfers—on women's and men's disposable incomes in Colombia, Ecuador, and the Plurinational State of Bolivia during the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates how these policies affected income distribution, labor market changes, and gender inequalities, providing lessons for mitigating gender disparities in future crises.

• Methodology: Using harmonized tax-benefit microsimulation models (BOLMOD, COLMOD, ECUAMOD), the study constructs counterfactual income distributions. Nowcasting techniques adjust household survey data to reflect pandemic-induced labor market shocks, separating the effects of labor income changes, automatic stabilizers, and emergency policies.

• Key Findings:

  • Gender Inequality: Before the pandemic, women consistently had lower average disposable incomes than men, primarily due to disparities in labor income (e.g., lower participation and hourly wages). Transfers were more significant for lower-income groups and disproportionately benefited women, narrowing the income gap partially through progressive taxation and targeted social assistance.
  • Pandemic Impact: Labor market shocks in 2020 disproportionately affected men, leading to a temporary reduction in the gender gap due to emergency transfers. However, automatic stabilizers were limited (e.g., weak unemployment insurance systems) and mostly concentrated in higher-income quintiles. In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, transfers effectively prevented disposable income declines in lower quintiles, while in Colombia and Ecuador, they supported women in lower-income brackets.
  • Policy Effectiveness: Emergency transfers provided substantial cushioning, but their short-term nature (most programs lasted <3 months) and reliance on manual beneficiary identification or proxy means-testing (e.g., housing-based criteria) limited their automatic stabilizing potential, particularly for women.

• Conclusions and Recommendations:

  • Strengthen contributory and non-contributory social protection to enhance automatic stabilizers, such as unemployment insurance and universal basic income-like transfers.
  • Improve social information systems for better targeting and real-time monitoring, integrating administrative data to reduce reliance on outdated proxy means-testing.
  • Promote gender-sensitive design in tax-benefit policies to balance the care economy and labor market, ensuring women's economic autonomy in crises.
  • Future research should include indirect taxes and time-use data to assess "consumable" income impacts and address regional informality and evasion challenges.