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Who did Covid-19 hurt the most in Sub-Saharan Africa ?

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  • Tchuisseu Seuyong,Feraud
  • Edochie,Ifeanyi Nzegwu
  • Newhouse,David Locke
  • Silwal,Ani Rudra

Abstract

How did the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic impact poor households in Sub-Saharan Africa This paper tackles this question by combining 73 High-Frequency Phone Surveys collected by national governments in 14 countries with older nationally representative surveys containing information on household consumption. In particular, it examines how outcomes differed according to predicted per capita consumption quintiles in the first wave of the survey, and in subsequent waves by households’ predicted per capita consumption. The initial shock affected households throughout the predicted welfare distribution. Households in the bottom 40 percent responded by sharply increasing farming activities between May and July of 2020 and gradually increasing ownership of non-farm enterprises starting in August. This coincided with an improvement in welfare, as measured by a decline in food insecurity and distressed asset sales among these households during the second half of 2020. With respect to education, children in the bottom quintile were 15 percentage points less likely to engage in learning activities than those in the top quintile in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, and the engagement gap between the bottom 40 and top 60 widened in the summer before narrowing in the fall due to large declines in engagement among the top 60. Poorer households were slightly more likely to report receiving public assistance immediately following the shock, and this difference changed little over the course of 2020. The results highlight the widespread impacts of the crisis both on welfare and children’s educational engagement, the importance of agriculture and household non-farm enterprises as safety nets for the poor, and the substantial recovery made by the poorest households in the year following the crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Tchuisseu Seuyong,Feraud & Edochie,Ifeanyi Nzegwu & Newhouse,David Locke & Silwal,Ani Rudra, 2024. "Who did Covid-19 hurt the most in Sub-Saharan Africa ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10726, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10726
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hai-Anh Dang & Toan L.D. Huynh & Manh-Hung Nguyen, 2023. "Does the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affect the poor? Evidence from a six-country survey," Journal of Economics and Development, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(1), pages 2-18, December.
    2. Jose Cuesta & Gabriel Lara Ibarra, 2017. "Comparing Cross-Survey Micro Imputation and Macro Projection Techniques: Poverty in Post Revolution Tunisia," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 25(1), pages 1-30, March.
    3. Hai‐Anh Dang & Dean Jolliffe & Calogero Carletto, 2019. "Data Gaps, Data Incomparability, And Data Imputation: A Review Of Poverty Measurement Methods For Data‐Scarce Environments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 757-797, July.
    4. Zhang, Yiyun & Li, Runze & Tsai, Chih-Ling, 2010. "Regularization Parameter Selections via Generalized Information Criterion," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(489), pages 312-323.
    5. Palacios-Lopez,Amparo & Newhouse,David Locke & Pape,Utz Johann & Khamis,Melanie & Weber,Michael & Prinz,Daniel, 2021. "The Early Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries : Evidence from High-Frequency Phone Surveys," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9510, The World Bank.
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