Forest-Based Employment in the Southern United States amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Causal Inference Analysis

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments instituted mandatory stay-at-home policies. As these policies made exceptions for essential industries such as the forest sector, it is not clear a priori whether and how these policies would affect forest-based employment. This study examined the effect of mandatory stay-at-home orders on employment in the forest sector in forest dependent counties in eleven southern states in the United States. We estimated panel event study models in addition to difference-in-difference models to evaluate the policy effects with respect to initial treatment as well as average effects to the treated counties during treatment. We found that employment in wood product manufacturing was lower on average in counties under a lockdown order compared with employment in counties without an active order. We also found that employment in the aggregate forest sector in counties that implemented the policy was significantly lower than employment in counties without the policy up to 9 months following initial enactment compared with the underlying difference between treated and control counties one month prior to treatment. Overall, our findings suggest that lockdown policies had a limited effect on employment in essential industries such as wood-based manufacturing sectors in the southern states.

Citation

Chizmar, Stephanie; Parajuli, Rajan; Bruck, Sonia; Frey, Gregory; Sills, Erin. 2023. Forest-Based Employment in the Southern United States amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Causal Inference Analysis. Forest Science. 70(1): 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1093/forsci/fxad042.