Social distress and (some) relief: Estimating the impact of pandemic job loss on poverty in South Africa

Ihsaan Bassier, Joshua Budlender and Maya Goldman

No wp-2022-80, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates, simulating incomes in pre-pandemic household surveys using contemporary labour market data to account for job losses between 2020 Q1 and 2021 Q4. Improving on much of the existing literature, we use observed rather than simulated shocks and allow for uneven impacts of the pandemic by employment sector and demographic characteristics.

Keywords: COVID-19; Poverty; Labour market; Simulation; South Africa; Social assistance; Pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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