Working Life and Labour Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic in an International Comparative Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an unprecedented disruption to global labour markets and working life. Containment measures, ranging from workplace closures to mobility restrictions and school shutdowns, reshaped both the supply of and demand for labour. Millions of workers faced job losses, reduced hours, and career interruptions, while households encountered intensified childcare responsibilities and blurred boundaries between professional and personal life. The pandemic was thus not only a public health emergency but also a crisis of working life and labour outcomes. This dissertation investigates these dynamics through six thematically related yet self-contained studies, offering a comparative analysis of labour market outcomes across. The analyses are grounded in established theoretical perspectives that illuminate the mechanisms linking work, family, and labour market outcomes. Work–Family Enrichment and Conflict theories, together with Boundary theory, explain how flexible working arrangements (FWAs) can simultaneously enhance well-being and generate tensions when boundaries between paid and unpaid roles collapse, as during widespread adoption of working from home (WFH). Flexicurity theory highlights how flexibility must be accompanied by security to mitigate employment disruptions. Labour market segmentation theory clarifies why vulnerable workers were disproportionately exposed to career deterioration and income loss, while Human Capital theory underscores how education, skills, and experience conditioned resilience. Finally, migration models such as the Harris–Todaro and Push–Pull frameworks provide a lens for understanding how geographical economic differences drive migration and how urban labour contractions heightened risks for internal migrants. The empirical analyses draw on multiple high-quality datasets, including Australia’s HILDA, the U.S. CPS, Ethiopia’s NLFMS, and the newly developed Familydemic dataset covering six countries. Using descriptive and econometric approaches, the dissertation examines how FWAs, family responsibilities, and institutional contexts jointly shaped labour outcomes and subjective well-being. The findings highlight three overarching themes. First, FWAs functioned as an ambivalent form of resilience: flextime reduced risks of job loss (leave), while WFH enhanced work–life balance for some but intensified role blurring and stress for others, particularly parents with childcare demands. Second, pandemic-induced career deterioration disproportionately affected vulnerable groups, temporary and low-skilled workers, those lacking schedule control, and internal migrants, translating into heightened risks of income loss and financial deprivation. Gender disparities in working hours narrowed modestly overall but concealed sharp heterogeneity, with mothers reducing hours while childless women and part-time workers experienced modest gains. Third, institutional and policy contexts proved decisive: variations in welfare regimes, childcare provision, and labour market regulations mediated both the extent of disruption and the capacity for resilience across countries. This dissertation contributes empirically, methodologically, and substantively. Empirically, it provides new cross-national evidence spanning advanced economies and a developing-country case, thereby extending the reach of comparative labour research. Methodologically, it integrates harmonized survey data with robust econometric strategies while introducing the Familydemic dataset as a novel cross-country resource. Substantively, it bridges economic and sociological perspectives by jointly analysing employment trajectories, household dynamics, and subjective well-being. Together, these studies offer policy-relevant insights into the conditions under which flexible work, childcare provision, and institutional protections can foster more equitable and resilient labour markets in times of crisis.