Socio-economic impact of Covid-19

Favad Soomro

Abstract/Description

Pakistan has entered the global health crisis of COVID-19 with a feeble economy. The real GDP growth is expected to slow by 3%, while the IMF estimates that around 40% of people in Pakistan will be living under the poverty line in the wake of COVID-19 with people living in already vulnerable conditions are worst affectees (WFP 2020). Loopstra et al. (2016) suggest that social protection helps to mitigate income shocks, thus is helpful in reducing food insecurity. The objective of this paper is to study the role of cash transfer to households as social protection in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on food security in Pakistan. The special survey evaluating socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on wellbeing of people conducted by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) published in January 2021 will be utilized in this study. The data on food access and cash transfer is utilized on household level for before and during lock down period. The households are matched using propensity scores on the basis of household covariates. The near neighborhood method is used to match and compare treatment and control groups to avoid selection bias (Azeem et al., 2019). The results are expected to show that households with some cash transfer are better-off in terms of food availability and cash transfer has helped households to sustain COVID-19 shock. Moreover, female headed households are more vulnerable than male headed households.

JEL Codes

I23, I24, J16

Session Theme

Socio-economic Impact of Covid-19 - Session IIC

Session Type

Parallel Technical Session

Session Chair

Dr. Uzma Iram, Assistant Professor - AERC, University of Karachi

Session Discussant

Dr. Aqdas Afzal, Program Director & Assistant ProfessorSocial Development & Policy Program, Habib University

Start Date

3-4-2021 2:30 PM

End Date

3-4-2021 4:00 PM

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Apr 3rd, 2:30 PM Apr 3rd, 4:00 PM

Socio-economic impact of Covid-19

Pakistan has entered the global health crisis of COVID-19 with a feeble economy. The real GDP growth is expected to slow by 3%, while the IMF estimates that around 40% of people in Pakistan will be living under the poverty line in the wake of COVID-19 with people living in already vulnerable conditions are worst affectees (WFP 2020). Loopstra et al. (2016) suggest that social protection helps to mitigate income shocks, thus is helpful in reducing food insecurity. The objective of this paper is to study the role of cash transfer to households as social protection in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on food security in Pakistan. The special survey evaluating socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on wellbeing of people conducted by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) published in January 2021 will be utilized in this study. The data on food access and cash transfer is utilized on household level for before and during lock down period. The households are matched using propensity scores on the basis of household covariates. The near neighborhood method is used to match and compare treatment and control groups to avoid selection bias (Azeem et al., 2019). The results are expected to show that households with some cash transfer are better-off in terms of food availability and cash transfer has helped households to sustain COVID-19 shock. Moreover, female headed households are more vulnerable than male headed households.