Oecd covid survey eag indd

partielle” in France or the “Expediente de Regulación 
Temporal de Empleo” in Spain allowed preserving 
jobs at companies experiencing a temporary drop 
in business activity while providing income support 
to workers whose hours were reduced or who were 
temporarily laid off (OECD, 2020
[23]
). Moreover, 
while highly educated adults were often able to work 
remotely, those with lower educational attainment 
dominated many occupations that performed essential 
functions during the pandemic.
While the change in unemployment rate may not 
have differed significantly across adults with different 
education levels in the majority of OECD countries, the 
number of hours worked was more disparate. Across 
the OECD, the year-on-year change in hours worked 
during the second quarter of 2020 fell by 8.5% among 
the high skilled, 20% among those with a medium level 
of education, and 24% among those holding just a 
lower secondary education diploma or less. Although 
the number of hours worked recovered for highly 
educated adults that returned to work later in the year, 
they persisted for those with a lower level of education 
(OECD, 2021
[24]
).
0
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2019
2020
Figure 11•
Trends in unemployment rates of 25-34 year-olds with below upper secondary attainment (2019 and 
2020)
Countries are ranked in ascending order of the unemployment rate of 25-34 year-olds with below upper secondary attainment in 
2020.
Source: 
OECD (2021
[21]
), Indicator A3.

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© OECD 2021 
35
The State of Global Education: 18 Months into the Pandemic
Gender
Younger women without upper secondary attainment 
are particularly affected by high unemployment. On 
average across OECD countries, the unemployment 
rate among women without upper secondary 
attainment was 11.9% in 2020, compared to 10.3% 
among men. With higher educational attainment levels, 
unemployment levels tend to be not only lower, but 
also similar between men and women. On average 
across OECD countries, the difference between the 
unemployment rates of women and men is
1.6 percentage points among adults with upper 
secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary attainment 
and 0.4 percentage point among tertiary educated 
adults.
Throughout the pandemic there has been increasing 
concern that women would suffer most from job loss, 
reversing the progress of recent decades. Women 
are more likely to work part-time, earn less and are 
less likely to have stable contractual status. Women 
were also more likely to be the primary caregiver to 
children when schools closed, resulting in higher risk 
of reduction in the number of hours worked. However, 
while unemployment increased in 2020 for all adults 
compared to 2019, the impact among men and 
women has been very similar on average across 
OECD countries. Among adults with below upper 
secondary education, the change in the unemployment 
rate of women has been within ±1 percentage point 
that of men in slightly more than half of OECD and