Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
How Did the COVID-19 Crisis Affect Different Types of Workers in the Developing World?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-08)The COVID-19 pandemic is the worst global macroeconomic shock since the Great Depression. This brief reports which groups of workers have been hit hardest by the economic fallout of COVID-19 in developing countries. Larger shares of female, young, less educated, and urban workers stopped working, with gender differences being particularly pronounced. Gender gaps in work stoppage stemmed mainly from differences within sectors rather than differential employment patterns across sectors. Among those that remained employed, changes in sector of employment and employment type were similar for all groups except for age, where young workers saw a slightly larger decline in industrial employment. Employment increased between April and October, with larger gains for the groups with larger initial job losses, but for most groups these gains fell far short of pre pandemic employment levels. Finally, evidence from five countries suggests that phone surveys give a generally accurate picture of group disparities in employment rates following the onset of the crisis and are proving to be a valuable tool for monitoring differential impacts of the crisis on workers -
Publication
The Evolving Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-22)The early labor market impacts of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in widespread disruption to livelihoods. Previous analysis showed that between April and July 2020, across a sample of 39 countries, an average of 34 percent of workers stopped work, 20 percent of employees experienced partial or no payments for work performed, and 9 percent changed jobs during the early part of the pandemic. This brief discusses how labor markets have evolved since the initial phase of the crisis in the spring and early summer of 2020. It uses harmonized data from high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) conducted in 33 developing countries and provides information on the changing labor market impacts of the crisis in these countries from the initial phase of the pandemic in April 2020 through December 2020. -
Publication
Taking Stock of COVID-19 Labor Policy Responses in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03-23)This Jobs Watch brief provides an analysis of labor market and social protection responses to the COVID-19 crisis, with a focus on policies targeted to workers and firms. It includes a comprehensive set of labor market interventions, using data from the global COVID-19 SPJ Policy Inventory. The analysis can inform governments of approaches that can be taken when introducing or adapting their crisis mitigation measures. To our knowledge, this is the first summary of labor market policies adopted by developing countries in response to the COVID-19 crisis. -
Publication
Barriers to Accessing Medical Care in Sub-Saharan Africa in Early Stages of COVID-19 Pandemic
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03)Eighty-two percent of respondents in a sample of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries were able to access medical care despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the remaining 18 percent, about one-third reported that the COVID-19 pandemic impaired their access, either due to lockdown restrictions, facility closures, or fear of contracting the virus. 'Lack of money' was by far the most frequently reported barrier to accessing care across countries, especially for food-insecure households, two-thirds of which cited 'lack of money' as the main healthcare access constraint. Continued monitoring can help shed light on who is most at risk of not being able to access healthcare during crises. This note makes use of newly harmonized data to summarize reasons why respondents in 11 SSA countries were unable to access medical care during early COVID-19 stages. -
Publication
Early Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01-22)The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic sharply reduced mobility and economic activity, disrupting the lives of people around the globe. This brief presents estimates on the crisis’ impact on labor markets in 39 countries based on high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) data collected between April and July 2020. Workers in these countries experienced severe labor market disruptions following the COVID-19 outbreak. 34 percent of respondents reported stopping work, 20 percent of wage workers reported lack of payment for work performed, 9 percent reported job changes due to the pandemic, and 62 percent reported income loss in their household. Measures of work stoppage and income loss in the HFPS are generally consistent with GDP growth projections in Latin America and the Caribbean but not in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating that the phone survey data contributes valuable new information about the impacts of the crisis. Ensuring availability of such critical data in the future will require investments into statistical and physical infrastructure as well as human capital to set up Emergency Observatories, which can rapidly deploy phone surveys to inform decision makers. -
Publication
How is the COVID-19 Crisis Affecting Nitrogen Dioxide Emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-05)Daily estimates of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2)—one of a group of pollutant gases that derive from human activity, primarily combustion—can provide a useful, albeit "noisy", real-time proxy measure of how COVID-19 has affected economic activity. To examine how the crisis affects NO2 levels in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we calculated mean daily NO2 tropospheric estimates for 43 regions that contain either national capitals or large urban areas for the period July 2018 to April 2020. We found that emissions reductions in April were sizeable, larger in more developed areas, and large in many but not all of the countries that implemented national lockdowns. Overall, the data suggest that NO2 readings contain useful information to help track the reduction in motorized transport, and possibly overall economic activity, in urban, developed areas.