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Gender equality is an important issue targeted all around the world, see, for example, the Gender Equality Strategy articulated by the European Union (EU). These goals were hindered by COVID-19, which caused a well-documented she-cession: females were hit harder than males. This paper shows that a “sisterhood behaviour” can mitigate the effects of the she-cession: female decision-makers were more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention.

Motivated by theories from psychology and industrial demography, we hypothesise a so-called sisterhood effect or homophily: female decision-makers are more likely to favour other females in recruitment and retention. We use firm-level survey data from 19 European countries collected before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we apply a difference-in-differences methodology to test the hypothesised sisterhood behaviour.

Our study finds that in firms where the top manager was a woman, gender discrimination was less likely or even not at all presented, i.e. COVID-19 did not decrease the proportion of female employees.

The results suggest that promoting gender equality in leadership dimensions can also moderate discrimination at the level of the employees. Therefore, in a wider context, gender equality goals are interrelated.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to analyse the existence of the theories mentioned before in a manager – employee relationship using firm-level data from the COVID-19 period.

The purpose of this paper is to show that gig jobs could be considered an alternative way, albeit not the very best, to give work opportunities to older people. This could offset the continuously decreasing income from the pay-as-you-go pension system, which remains the main source of income for older Hungarians.

The paper reviews the most important aspects of employment of older people and highlights the digital divide which still restricts their participation in the labor market. The paper analyzes data from the Hungarian carpooling company Oszkár and compares it with official statistical data from the Hungarian labor market, focusing on the dynamics of the employment of older persons.

The findings show that the alienation of older workers from the gig economy is just transitory, and that an increasing proportion of older gig workers can be anticipated.

Compiling data on the gig economy faces a number of obstacles, as enterprises are disincentivized from revealing all their data.

Older people are more likely to be employed in lower-quality jobs, such as own-account self-employed. They are also increasingly more likely to become gig workers.

The paper articulates the importance of remaining active as one ages and moreover challenges the traditional belief that gig jobs mainly offer opportunities to the younger generations.