There is emerging evidence that the pandemic has both created new inequalities and exacerbated pre-existing income gaps within countries. Past research has shown that people entering the labour market during a severe recession earn less than the cohorts just before and after them, and that those differences can last for many years.
By inducing a massive global recession, Covid-19 has certainly created new inequalities among the cohort of young people. The pandemic has also worsened preexisting inequalities in the labour market, mainly because the ability to work from home is highly correlated with education and, hence, with pre-pandemic earnings. It is possible to argue that greater inequality is likely to hinder the ability of the next generation to move up the social ladder and either to educate and/or earn more than the previous generation. This is the issue that we are discussing in this article through an investigation of the so-called ‘Great Gatsby curve’.
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