Pandemic inequality: new realities and prospects

Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence of factors contributing to pandemic inequality. The pandemic itself is a completely novel factor, and it is associated with high uncertainty. Methodologically, this study builds upon sociological, economic, and psychological theories of inequality; these theories are elaborated by a combination of dialectical and causal analysis. The paper presents short overview of prior research into factors of pandemic and post-pandemic inequality in the context of the changing labor market; it further analyzes major trends and patterns of such inequality in order to identify the key causes and challenges of the situation today. It focuses on the need to help workers and businesses adapt to the irreversible processes of the post-pandemic world, to change the macroeconomic policy on many levels of the administrative hierarchy. The results of this study could lay the foundations for studying the behavior of workers in the labor market; they should also be accounted for by public agencies responsible for welfare programs intended to curb the pandemic inequality. The theoretical and practical contributions hereof lies in substantiation of the need to optimize the priorities of macroeconomic policies, to implement them competently in the fight against poverty, to balance the costs and benefits of labor market transformation, and to devise novel social policy mechanisms.

Keywords

• socio-economic inequality
• “pandemic” inequality
• macroeconomic policy