Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
Gender and Property Taxes in São Paulo
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-15)This knowledge note provides new evidence on property ownership and taxation patterns across genders in São Paulo (Brazil), the largest city in the Americas, with 12 million inhabitants. We exploit microdata on all commercial and residential properties to document the share of total property and property wealth owned by women, the geographic distribution of female-owned properties, and the implications of this data for property taxes in the city. -
Publication
High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) - Phase 2: Sampling Design, Weighting, and Estimation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-12)After implementing Phase 1 of the High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) project in Latin America and The Caribbean (LAC) in 2020, the World Bank conducted Phase 2 in 2021 to continue to assess the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households. This new phase, conducted in partnership with the UNDP LAC Chief Economist office, included two waves. Wave 1 covered 24 countries and Wave 2 covered 22 countries. Of these countries, 13 participated in Phase 1 and the rest joined in Phase 2. This document describes the sampling design, weighting and the right procedure to estimate indicators for the LAC HFPS Phase 2 surveys. -
Publication
Disruption of Health Care Services and COVID-19 Vaccination in Latin America and the Caribbean by Mid-2021
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Vaccination has constituted the most effective response to save lives and reactivate economies and societies. By October 19th, 2022, almost 1,300 million Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine doses had been administered in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). However, lingering gaps in achieving target vaccination levels throughout the region are especially concerning as new SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to emerge. At the regional level, Chile and Cuba were ahead with almost 91 and 89 percent of the population having completed their initial vaccination protocol, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, Jamaica and Haiti lagged the rest of the region, with only 26 percent and 2 percent of their populations vaccinated, respectively. The 2021 high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) provide insight into these issues by taking the pulse of household health care needs and barriers to access a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the information from the first wave of the 2021 HFPS, this note aims to present an overview of the disruption of health care services, the need for preventive and non-preventive health care services, and the status of COVID-19 vaccinations. -
Publication
LAC COVID-19 High-Frequency Phone Surveys: Phase II 2021 - Technical Note
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) were among the regions most affected by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 - despite being home to only 8.5 percent of the world’s population, over 47 million people were infected by the virus by the end of November 2021, representing almost 18 percent of global cases, and the socioeconomic and human capital effects will be felt for many years to come. While in 2021 the region experimented an important economic recovery, with mobility almost fully restored to pre-pandemic levels and a remarkable progress in vaccination campaigns, positive spillovers on households’ welfare have proved elusive in some countries and for some segments of the population. In an effort to continue monitoring how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the livelihoods of households in the region, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) joined forces to implement a second phase of high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) in over 20 LAC countries in 2021. A first wave (wave 1) was collected between May and July, with a second (wave 2) following between October and December 2021 to January 2022 for Peru. The HFPS phase II adds 11 countries to those originally included in phase one. In wave 2, a representative sample of minorities was obtained in seven countries. -
Publication
Internet Access and Use in Latin America and the Caribbean: From the LAC High Frequency Phone Surveys 2021
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)While most households in Latin America and the Caribbean use mobile broadband via smartphones, expensive fees and poor service quality pose major obstacles for potential users. In addition, power outages are a challenge for nearly 40 percent of existing mobile broadband users. Addressing the region’s need for faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet connections is thus a policy and investment priority. There are persistent and significant gaps in digital infrastructure between countries in the region, as well as weighty rural-urban gaps within some countries. Bridging these digital divides will be key to inclusive digital transformation. Households with tertiary education are on average more connected (with better quality service and higher expenditures on data) compared to the rest of the population. As education level is correlated with income, digital inequalities mirror and may amplify existing social inequalities – underscoring the critical need to address them. Over two-thirds of connected households in the region are concerned about privacy and security when using the internet. However, households on average across Latin America and the Caribbean still reported increasing their use of the internet amid the pandemic, suggesting that neither issue poses a barrier to their internet use at present. -
Publication
Not There Yet: Slow Recovery and Many Left Behind as Latin America and the Caribbean Navigates the Ripples of the Pandemic - 2021 High-Frequency Phone Surveys - Wave 2
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-09)To continue monitoring how the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the welfare of households in the region, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) joined forces in 2021 to implement a second phase of High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A first wave was collected between May and July 2021, and a second between October 2021 and January 2022. This last wave takes the socio-economic pulse of households and measures the region's well-being almost two years into the pandemic. This note presents the emerging results in the areas of labor markets, income, food security, coping mechanisms, education, health, and gender. -
Publication
Brazil – COVID-19 in Latin America and Caribbean: 2021 High Frequency Phone Surveys - Results Phase Two, Wave One
(Washington, DC, 2022-04)Brazil has been one of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the region. In June 2021, it was the country with the second-highest rate of deaths per million and the fourth by the number of cases per million in Latin America and the Caribbean. The effects of the health crisis were broad and still evident a year and a half into the pandemic. In line with pre-existing vulnerability profiles, the pandemic affected the Brazilian population differently in the labor market. At the time of the survey, the proportion of people who lost their pre-pandemic job and were not working was 29.1 percent. This proportion was highest among the elderly (57.8 percent), those with primary education or less (42.7 percent), women (41.4 percent) and rural workers (38.7 percent). About 58 percent of those who lost their jobs became inactive, and most of the new inactive were women (68.9 percent). Simultaneously, 29.2 percent of the previously inactive entered the labor force during the pandemic, though one-quarter of them were unemployed in mid-2021. Women represented a majority among the new active (64.3 percent). Finally, the pandemic resulted in higher informality rates among those who remained employed. -
Publication
The Learning Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Sobering Results of a Deepening Trend
(Washington, DC, 2022-04)The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region was suffering from a deep learning crisis, before the COVID-19 outbreak, with most students being below minimum proficiency levels for critical foundational competencies in numeracy and literacy, according to the Fourth Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE). The pandemic that hit the region in March 2020 led to a massive shutdown of educational systems, placing LAC as the region with the longest duration of school closures in the world. The impact of school closures on education service delivery was significant. The forced move to distance learning negatively impacted attendance in the education process, both when compared to enrollment rates (-10 percent) and with pre-pandemic attendance rates (-12 percent). Most worryingly, one in four students attending the education process during the pandemic confirmed being disengaged from learning activities while at home. The COVID-19 led to a crisis within a crisis, deepening pre-existing inequalities that characterize the LAC region, as the most vulnerable populations were disproportionately affected. A significant increase in drop-out rates and decrease in learning outcomes is expected, especially for these groups and countries which were already not doing well pre-pandemic. There is a sizeable schooling and learning recovery agenda ahead of LAC, where re-enrollment campaigns, standardized and in-classroom assessments, and programs to teach to the right level will be fundamental to determine the exact depth of educational losses and start recovering. -
Publication
2021 LAC High Frequency Phone Surveys: Result Briefs Phase II, Round 1 - 2021
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04)The World Bank and UNDP conducted a multi-wave High-Frequency Phone Survey (HFPS) in 2021 to assess the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the welfare of Latin American and Caribbean households. The first wave was collected between May and July 2021, and the data is nationally representative for 24 countries: Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia and Uruguay. he HFPS provides information on the welfare impacts that households experienced with respect to food insecurity, changes in employment, income changes, access to health and education services, and coping mechanisms. -
Publication
Preventing and Addressing Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)
(Washington, DC, 2022-02)Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is widely recognized as an impediment to the social and economic development of communities and States and the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Experiencing violence precludes women from contributing to and benefiting from development initiatives by limiting their agency, that is, their choices and ability to act. The deprivation of women resulting from VAWG should be of central concern to governments as an intrinsic human rights issue and due to its impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. Child marriage - a form of violence against women - epitomizes a profound lack of voice and agency and affects multiple areas of a girl’s life by lowering her education, increasing her fertility, reducing her labor force participation, and curtailing her future earnings prospects. Addressing violence against women and girls requires a comprehensive combination of prevention and protection measures involving a multi-level, multi-stakeholder approach, and sustained engagement leveraging various sector entries. The most effective initiatives address underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender roles and the acceptability of violence. A 2020 meta-analysis of 104 rigorous impact evaluations of interventions to prevent women’s experience and men’s perpetration of physical and or sexual intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence shows that nine categories of interventions were effective in reducing VAWG, including cash transfers or economic empowerment programs for women when combined with group discussions on VAWG and gender transformative programming, couples’ interventions, parenting programs to prevent domestic violence and child maltreatment, community activism to shift harmful gender norms, and school-based intervention to prevent dating violence. In Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), the World Bank has engaged with countries and partners to support the integration of VAWG components in sector-specific projects in areas such as transport, education, social protection, and forced displacement. Projects have integrated measures to prevent and respond to VAWG through improved access to justice and services, implementation of communications campaigns, training, safeguards, and enhanced national data systems.