How Has COVID-19 Affected Labor Income in Serbia? An Exploration of Gender, Education, the Possibility to Work from Home, and the Employment Sector Differences.

This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on labor income changes of employees in Serbia. The research was conducted on a representative sample of 3,044 individuals from Serbia, using the CATI method, whereby 1,464 of them were included in the analyses as they provided the complete data needed for this study. Employees' labor income was recorded by collecting data on wages before and nine months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. To obtain the difference, we calculated the percentage change in wages, accounting for the nominal values. There was no significant gender difference in the percentage change of income, while there was a difference regarding education level. Employees with primary education experienced an average percentage increase in wages of 7.6%, whereas those holding secondary and tertiary education had a negligible increase (1.84%) and a decrease (-0.78%), respectively. The analysis revealed a significant interaction between gender and education, indicating that men with primary education had an average increase of 12.8%. Our results showed that employees who could not perform their jobs from home had an average percentage increase of 2.9% in wages. The employment sector also had an effect on percentage changes in wages. The construction and agriculture, forestry, and fishery sectors had an average percentage wage increase of 12.6% and 11.5%, respectively, while employees in the sector of other service activities experienced an average percentage decrease of 7.9%. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the diverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on labor income, emphasizing the importance of considering gender, education, remote work possibilities, and the employment sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]