Long COVID : The Evolution of Household Welfare in Developing Countries during the Pandemic

This paper examines the welfare impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, using harmonized data from 343 high-frequency phone surveys conducted in 80 economies during 2020 and 2021, representing more than 2.5 billion people. The analysis focuses on the scarring effects of the initial losses of employment and income by examining their evolution over time across and within countries, as restrictions on mobility and economic activity were introduced and then gradually relaxed. The employment and welfare outcomes of some groups that were impacted to a greater degree initially-including women, informal workers, and those with less education-have been improving at a slower pace. The social protection response in lower-income economies was largely insufficient to protect households from the pandemic shock. Unmitigated welfare losses, as seen for example from the large share of households indicating income losses well into 2021, are highly correlated with food insecurity, which likely led some households to sell physical assets and deplete their savings. Without proper remediation, the uneven welfare impacts associated with COVID-19 may be amplified over the medium to long term, leading to future increases in poverty and inequality