The unequal impact of the coronavirus pandemic: Evidence from seventeen developing countries

Nicolas Bottan, Bridget Hoffmann and Diego Vera-Cossio
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Diego A. Vera Cossio

PLOS ONE, 2020, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-10

Abstract: The current coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented public health challenge that is having a devastating economic impact on households. Using a sample of 230,540 respondents to an online survey from 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the study shows that the economic impacts are large and unequal: 45 percent of respondents report that a household member has lost their job and, among households owning small businesses, 59 percent of respondents report that a household member has closed their business. Among households with the lowest income prior to the pandemic, 71 percent report that a household member lost their job and 61 percent report that a household member has closed their business. Declines in food security and health are among the disproportionate impacts. The findings provide evidence that the current public health crisis will exacerbate economic inequality and provides some of the first estimates of the impact of the pandemic on the labor market and well-being in developing countries.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239797 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 39797&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Unequal Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic: Evidence from Seventeen Developing Countries (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0239797

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239797

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().