COVID-19 and the Economic Importance of In-Person K–12 Schooling

The extent to which elementary and secondary (K–12) schools should remain open is at the forefront of discussions on long-term pandemic management. In this context, little mention has been made of the immediate importance of K–12 schooling for the rest of the economy. Eliminating in-person schooling reduces the amount of time parents of school-aged children have available to work and therefore reduces income to those workers and the economy as a whole. We discuss two measures of economic importance and how they can be modified to better reflect the vital role played by K–12 education. The first is its size, as captured by the fraction of gross domestic product produced by that sector. The second is its centrality, reflecting how essential the sector is to the network of economic activity. Using data from Canada’s Census of Population and Symmetric Input–Output Tables, we show how accounting for this role dramatically increases the importance of K–12 schooling.