Publication:
The Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Latin America: Long-Run Implications for Poverty and Inequality

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.15 MB)
511 downloads
English Text (110.52 KB)
41 downloads
Published
2022-12
ISSN
Date
2023-01-10
Editor(s)
Abstract
The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the human capital formation of children and youths. As a consequence of this disruption, the pandemic is likely to imply permanent lower levels of human capital. This paper provides new evidence on the impact of COVID-19 and school closures on education in Latin America by exploiting harmonized microdata from a large set of national household surveys carried out in 2020, during the pandemic. In addition, the paper uses microsimulations to assess the potential effect of changes in human capital due to the COVID-19 crisis on future income distributions. The findings show that the pandemic is likely to have significant long-run consequences in terms of incomes and poverty if strong compensatory measures are not taken soon.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Bracco, Jessica; Ciaschi, Matías; Gasparini, Leonardo; Marchionni, Mariana; Neidhöfer, Guido. 2022. The Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Latin America: Long-Run Implications for Poverty and Inequality. Policy Research Working Papers;10259. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38449 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08) Baez, Javier E.; Kshirsagar, Varun
    Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.
  • Publication
    The Evolution of Local Participatory Democracy in Nepal
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-05) Bhusal, Thaneshwar; Breen, Michael G; Rao, Vijayendra
    Nepal is, according to its constitution, among the world’s most decentralized countries, with a long and complex tradition of local-level public participation. This paper traces the evolution of Nepal’s modern participatory institutions, examining the extent to which they are “induced” by external interventions versus being “organically” rooted in indigenous practices. The paper identifies three broad phases: an initial focus on participation in project implementation; a subsequent phase that expanded citizen engagement; and a third phase of citizen empowerment, culminating in the 2015 federal constitution, which granted unprecedented local autonomy. The analysis yields five key findings. First, over the past 50 years, successive reforms have progressively expanded opportunities for citizens to influence local decision-making. Second, these reforms have integrated traditional participatory mechanisms into formal institutions of local government. Third, although central-level initiatives exist, most participatory platforms continue to operate at the local level. Fourth, the federal constitution has created a new landscape of local democracy, embedding autonomy and accountability. Fifth, although they are still valued in many ethnic and territorial communities, traditional participatory practices are gradually disappearing. The paper concludes by offering policy recommendations to help donor agencies and governments strengthen Nepal’s democratic trajectory. It argues that effective interventions should build on Nepal’s deep participatory traditions while recognizing the constitutional reality of far-reaching local autonomy.
  • Publication
    Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07) Kim, Galileu; Kumar, Tanu; Ramalho, Rita; Russell, Stuart
    State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.
  • Publication
    Closing the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Challenges in Law and Practice for Female Entrepreneurs
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07) Behr, Daniela M.; Xi, Yue
    Despite significant strides toward gender equality, women around the world continue to encounter systemic obstacles that hinder their entrepreneurial success. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the barriers female entrepreneurs face and the solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. It discusses institutional factors, financial factors, human capital factors, and social and cultural factors. The literature overview is complemented by a series of stylized facts that illustrate how overcoming some of these existing barriers is correlated with improved women’s entrepreneurship and female labor force participation, drawing on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database as well as the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. The findings underscore the need for creating an enabling environment where women can thrive as entrepreneurs.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Educational Upgrading and Returns to Skills in Latin America : Evidence from a Supply-Demand Framework, 1990–2010
    (2011-12-01) Gasparini, Leonardo; Galiani, Sebastian; Cruces, Guillermo; Acosta, Pablo
    It has been argued that a factor behind the decline in income inequality in Latin America in the 2000s was the educational upgrading of its labor force. Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of the labor force in the region with at least secondary education increased from 40 to 60 percent. Concurrently, returns to secondary education completion fell throughout the past two decades, while the 2000s saw a reversal in the increase in the returns to tertiary education experienced in the 1990s. This paper studies the evolution of wage differentials and the trends in the supply of workers by educational level for 16 Latin American countries between 1990 and 2000. The analysis estimates the relative contribution of supply and demand factors behind recent trends in skill premia for tertiary and secondary educated workers. Supply-side factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side factors, and are only relevant to explain part of the fall in wage premia for high-school graduates. Although there is significant heterogeneity in individual country experiences, on average the trend reversal in labor demand in the 2000s can be partially attributed to the recent boom in commodity prices that could favor the unskilled (non-tertiary educated) workforce, although employment patterns by sector suggest that other within-sector forces are also at play, such as technological diffusion or skill mismatches that may reduce the labor productivity of highly-educated workers.
  • Publication
    Inequality Stagnation in Latin America in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis
    (World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-12) Barriga Cabanillas, Oscar; Cord, Louise; Lucchetti, Leonardo; Rodriguez Castelan, Carlos; Valderrama, Daniel; Sousa, Liliana D.
    Over the past decade (2003-12), Latin America has experienced strong income growth and a notable reduction in income inequality, with the region's Gini coefficient falling from 55.6 to 51.8. Previous studies have warned about the sustainability of such a decline, and this paper presents evidence of stagnation in the pace of reduction of income inequality in Latin America since 2010. This phenomenon of stagnation is robust to different measures of inequality and is largely attributable to the impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Mexico and Central America, where inequality rose after 2010 as labor income recovered. Moreover, this paper finds evidence that much of the continuation of inequality reduction after the crisis at the country level has been due to negative or zero income growth for households in the top of the income distribution, and lower growth of the incomes of the poorest households. The crisis also highlighted weaknesses in the region's labor markets and the heavy reliance on public transfers to redistribute, underscoring the vulnerability of the region's recent social gains to global economic conditions.
  • Publication
    Measuring Poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04) Castaneda, R. Andres; Gasparini, Leonardo; Garriga, Santiago; Lucchetti, Leonardo R.; Valderrama, Daniel
    This paper contributes to the methodological literature on the estimation of poverty lines for country poverty comparisons in Latin America and the Caribbean. The paper exploits a unique, comprehensive data set of 86 up-to-date urban official extreme and moderate poverty lines across 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the recent values of the national purchasing power parity conversion factors from the 2011 International Comparison Program and a set of harmonized household surveys that are part of the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean project. Because of the dispersion of country-specific poverty lines, the paper concludes that the value of a regional poverty line largely depends on the selected aggregation method, which ends up having a direct impact on the estimation of regional extreme and moderate poverty headcounts.
  • Publication
    The Short-Term Impacts of COVID-19 on Households in Developing Countries
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-03) Bundervoet, Tom; Davalos, Maria E.; Garcia, Natalia
    This paper combines new data from high-frequency surveys with data on the stringency of containment measures to examine the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households in developing countries. This paper is one of the first to document the impacts of COVID-19 on households across a large number of developing countries and to do so for a comparable time-period, corresponding to the peak of the pandemic-induced drop in human mobility, and the first to systematically analyze the cross- and within-country effects on employment, income, food security, and learning. Using representative data from 34 countries, accounting for a combined population of almost 1.4 billion, the findings show that in the average country, 36 percent of respondents stopped working in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, over 64 percent of households reported decreases in income, and over 30 percent of children were unable to continue learning during school closures. Pandemic-induced loss of jobs and income translated into heightened food insecurity at the household level. The more stringent the virus containment measures were, the higher was the likelihood of loss of jobs and income. The pandemic’s effects were widespread and highly regressive, disproportionately affecting vulnerable segments of the population. Women, youth, and lower-educated workers—groups disadvantaged in the labor market before the COVID-19 shock—were significantly more likely to lose their jobs and experience decreased incomes. Self-employed and casual workers—the most vulnerable workers in developing countries—bore the brunt of the pandemic- induced income losses. Interruptions in learning were most salient for children in lower-income countries, and within countries for children in lower-income households with lower-educated parents and in rural areas. The unequal impacts of the pandemic across socioeconomic groups risk cementing inequality of opportunity and undermining social mobility and call for policies to foster an inclusive recovery and strengthen resilience to future shocks.
  • Publication
    COVID-19 Impact Monitoring
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10) Malawi National Statistical Office; World Bank
    In May 2020, the national statistical office (NSO), with support from the World Bank, has launched the high-frequency phone survey on Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), which tracks the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on a monthly basis for a period of 12 months. The survey aimed to recontact the entire sample of households that had been interviewed during the integrated household panel survey (IHPS) 2019 round and that had a phone number for at least one household member or a reference individual. This report presents the findings from the third round of the survey that was conducted during the period of August 2 to 16, 2020.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    The Government Analytics Handbook
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-28) Rogger, Daniel; Schuster, Christian
    The Government Analytics Handbook presents frontier evidence and practitioner insights on how to leverage data to strengthen public administration. Covering a range of microdata sources—such as administrative data and public servant surveys—as well as tools and resources for undertaking the analytics, it transforms the ability of governments to take a data-informed approach to diagnose and improve how public organizations work. The "Handbook" is a must-have for practitioners, policy makers, academics, and government agencies. It is available as a single volume in print or digital formats, and as chapters for modular use. Additional tools, data and background information are available at worldbank.org/governmentanalytics. “Governments have long been assessed using aggregate governance indicators, giving us little insight into their diversity and how they can practically be improved. This pioneering handbook shows how microdata can be used to give scholars and practitioners granular and real insights into how states work, and practical guidance on the process of state-building.” —Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University, author of State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century - "The Government Analytics Handbook is the most comprehensive work on practically building government administration I have ever seen, helping practitioners to change public administration for the better.” —Francisco Gaetani, Special Secretary for State Transformation, Government of Brazil - “The machinery of the state is central to a country’s prosperity. This handbook provides insights and methodological tools for creating a better shared understanding of the realities of a state, to support the redesign of institutions, and improve the quality of public administration.” —James Robinson, University of Chicago, coauthor of Why Nations Fail
  • Publication
    Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social Protection Delivery Systems
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-07-30) Lindert, Kathy; Karippacheril, Tina George; Rodriguez Caillava, Inés; Nishikawa Chavez, Kenichi; Lindert, Kathy; Karippacheril, Tina George; Rodriguez Caillava, Inés; Nishikawa Chavez, Kenichi
    The Sourcebook synthesizes real-world experiences and lessons learned of social protection delivery systems from around the world, with a particular focus on social and labor benefits and services. It takes a practical approach, seeking to address concrete “how-to” questions, including: How do countries deliver social protection benefits and services? How do they do so effectively and efficiently? How do they ensure dynamic inclusion, especially for the most vulnerable and needy? How do they promote better coordination and integration—not only among social protection programs but also programs in other parts of government? How can they meet the needs of their intended populations and provide a better client experience? The Sourcebook structures itself around eight key principles that can frame the delivery systems mindset: (1) delivery systems evolve over time, do so in a non-linear fashion, and are affected by the starting point(s); (2) additional efforts should be made to “do simple well”, and to do so from the start rather than trying to remedy by after-the-fact adding-on of features or aspects; (3) quality implementation matters, and weaknesses in the design or structure of any core system element will negatively impact delivery; (4) defining the “first mile” for people interface greatly affects the system and overall delivery, and is most improved when that “first mile” is understood as the weakest link in delivery systems); (5) delivery systems do not operate in a vacuum and thus should not be developed in silos; (6) delivery systems can contribute more broadly to government’s ability to intervene in other sectors, such as health insurance subsidies, scholarships, social energy tariffs, housing benefits, and legal services; (7) there is no single blueprint for delivery systems, but there are commonalities and those common elements constitute the core of the delivery systems framework; (8) inclusion and coordination are pervasive and perennial dual challenges, and they contribute to the objectives of effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Publication
    Tanzania Country Climate and Development Report
    (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2024-12-12) World Bank Group
    The Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for Tanzania identifies the impact of climate change on the country’s economy. The CCDR uses macroeconomic, climate, sectoral, institutional, and financial models to identify the economy’s exposure to climate risks and the opportunities to integrate climate action and development. High poverty levels and dependence on rainfed, low-productivity agriculture leaves Tanzania’s economy vulnerable to climate risks. By 2050, climate change could push an additional 2.6 million people in poverty and force up to 13 million Tanzanians to migrate internally. The CCDR presents how implementation of three multisectoral intervention areas could generate climate-positive, resilient, and inclusive growth in Tanzania by 2050. These are: integrating climate considerations when strengthening human capital and social protection; optimizing land and water use and management to boost agriculture and rural productivity, augment climate resilience, and lower greenhouses gas emissions; and prioritizing resilient and low-carbon transport, energy and digital infrastructure systems in urban areas and different sectors. The CCDR details governance arrangements for effective climate change action, presents investment needs, and describes options for mobilizing financing. Action is needed both to reduce vulnerabilities of Tanzania’s current economy and realize the country’s Vision 2050 goal of a more inclusive and sustainable growth trajectory. Targeted climate action could boost private investment and job creation, enabling Tanzania to meet its development objectives in the face of global risks. Technical background reports prepared for the CCDR are available upon request.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    The Changing Wealth of Nations 2021
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-10-27) World Bank
    It is now clear that a narrow focus on the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) is insufficient to achieve humanity’s aspirations for sustainable prosperity. Wellfunctioning ecosystems and educated populations are requisites for sustainable wellbeing. These and other too-often-neglected ingredients of national wealth must be addressed if the development path is to be sustainable. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2021: Managing Assets for the Future provides the most comprehensive accounting of the wealth of nations, an in-depth analysis of the evolution of wealth, and pathways to build wealth for the future. This report—and the accompanying global database—firmly establishes comprehensive wealth as a measure of sustainability and a key component of country analytics. It expands the coverage of wealth accounts and improves our understanding of the quality of all assets, notably, natural capital. Wealth—the stock of produced, natural, and human capital—is measured as the sum of assets that yield a stream of benefits over time. Changes in the wealth of nations matter because they reflect the change in countries’ assets that underpin future income. Countries regularly track GDP as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth, and national wealth has a more direct and long-term impact on people’s lives. This report provides a new set of tools and analysis to help policy makers navigate risks and to guide collective action. Wealth accounts can be applied in macroeconomic analysis to areas of major policy concern such as climate change and natural resource management. This report can be used to look beyond GDP, to gauge nations’ economic well-being, and to promote sustainable prosperity.