The short-term impacts of COVID-19 on households in developing countries: An overview based on a harmonized dataset of high-frequency surveys

• Published in: World development 2022-05, Vol.153, p.105844-105844, Article 105844
• Main Authors: Bundervoet, Tom, Dávalos, Maria E., Garcia, Natalia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cementing; Children; Containment; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Data; Developing countries; Disadvantaged; Economic inequality; Education; Education work relationship; Employment; Equal opportunities; Equal opportunity; Food security; Higher education; Households; Income; Induced; Inequality; Insecurity; Interruptions; Labor market; LDCs; Learning; Low income groups; Minority groups; Mobility; Pandemics; Polls & surveys; Resilience; Respondents; Rural areas; Rural communities; Self employment; Short term; Social mobility; Socioeconomic factors; Surveys; Vulnerability; Women; Workers
• ISSN: 0305-750X; 1873-5991; 0305-750X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105844

•Across 31 countries representing a combined population of 1.4 billion, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to large job and income losses and increased food insecurity, and has severely interrupted children’s education.•The pandemic’s effects have been regressive, disproportionally affecting population groups that were disadvantaged to begin with (women, youth and less educated workers).•The interruption of education is a key channel through which the pandemic risks having a long-term adverse impact on inequality and household welfare, with children in rural households and with less-educated parents being less likely to continue learning during school closures.•Overall, the pandemic’s effects risk cementing inequality of opportunity and lower intergenerational mobility. Policies for an inclusive recovery will be needed. We combine new data from high-frequency surveys with data on the stringency of containment measures to examine the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households in developing countries. This paper is one of the first to document the impacts of COVID-19 on households across a large number of developing countries and to do so for a comparable time-period, corresponding to the peak of the pandemic-induced drop in human mobility, and the first to systematically analyze the cross- and within-country effects on employment, income, food security and learning. Using representative data from 31 countries, accounting for a combined population of almost 1.4 billion, we find that in the average country 36 percent of respondents stopped working in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, 65 percent of households reported decreases in income, and 30 percent of children were unable to continue learning during school closures. Pandemic-induced jobs and income losses translated into heightened food insecurity at the household level. The more stringent the virus containment measures, the higher the likelihood of jobs and income losses. The pandemic’s effects were widespread and regressive, disproportionally affecting vulnerable segments of the population. Women, youth, and workers without higher education – groups disadvantaged in the labor market before the COVID-19 shock – were significantly more likely to lose their jobs and experience decreased incomes. Self-employed and casual workers – the most vulnerable workers in developing countries – bore the brunt of the pandemic-induced income losses. Interruptions in learning were most salient for childr