Private equity firms are often criticized for laying off workers, but the evidence on who loses their jobs and why is scarce. This paper argues that explanations for job polarization also explain layoffs after private equity buyouts. Buyouts reduce agency problems, which triggers automation and offshoring. Using rich employer-employee data, we show that buyouts generally do not affect unemployment incidence. However, unemployment incidence doubles for workers in less productive firms who perform routine or offshorable job tasks. Job polarization is also much more marked among workers affected by buyouts than for the economy at large.

We investigate the role of gender norms in shaping parental childcare following changes in the relative take-home pay of mothers and fathers. Exploiting variation from Swedish tax reforms, we estimate the elasticity of substitution in parental childcare for native and immigrant couples from a variety of countries characterized by varying gender norms. Couples originating from countries with relatively conservative norms are more likely to reallocate childcare to mothers following a reduction in the father’s tax rate and less likely to reallocate childcare to fathers following a reduction in the mother’s tax rate, thereby reinforcing a traditional allocation of childcare across parents.