The environment and the world of work are tightly linked. Environmental degradation can, in the long term hurt jobs through two channels: reduction in the provision of ecosystem services which sustain jobs and a direct impact on individuals’ health (ILO, 2018). Indoor and outdoor air pollution, as a form of environmental degradation can affect workers’ right to work through own illness or, when the care of dependents relies on working individuals, through the illness of dependent others (e.g. children or the frail elderly).
This paper focuses on the effects of urban outdoor air pollution. It takes advantage of 20 years of daily outdoor air pollution and quarterly employment data from Santiago, Chile. Results show that pollution does not decrease overall labour supply, but that the null results on the aggregate hides a gender-biased effect: when air pollution rises, women – and women with children, in particular – are more likely to work fewer hours. The results hold for households with children but not for households with an elderly. This apparent discrepancy in how care for children and care for the elderly impact labour supply when air pollution increases, reflects carers’ ability to combine paid work and care when caring for children and the elderly, respectively: as children go to school or are more likely to attend childcare when healthy, when they fall sick they need to be cared for by someone. As care for the healthy elderly relies mostly on women who do not work for pay, when the elderly falls sick it does not impact his or her carers’ work for pay.
The paper further develops the link between air pollution, labour supply and the care economy, describes the data sources and methods and discusses the results.