IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inq/inqwps/ecineq2021-568.html

Poverty in the COVID-19 Era: Real Time Data Analysis on Five European Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Giorgia Menta

    (University of Luxembourg)

Abstract

Using real-time data from the University of Luxembourg’s COME-HERE nationally representative panel survey, covering more than 8,000 individuals across France, Germany,Italy, Spain, and Sweden, I investigate how income distributions and poverty rates havechanged from January to September 2020. I find that poverty rates increased on average in allcountries from January to May and partially recovered in September. The increase in povertyis heterogeneous across countries, with Italy being the most affected and France the least;within countries, COVID-19 contributed to exacerbating poverty differences across regions inItaly and Spain. With a set of poverty measures from the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke family, I thenexplore the role of individual characteristics in shaping different poverty profiles acrosscountries. Results suggest that poverty increased disproportionately more for youngindividuals, women, and respondents who had a job in January 2020 – with different intensityacross countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorgia Menta, 2021. "Poverty in the COVID-19 Era: Real Time Data Analysis on Five European Countries," Working Papers 568, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    • Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2021-568
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2021-568.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    2. Oscar Jorda & Sanjay R. Singh & Alan M. Taylor, 2022. "Longer-Run Economic Consequences of Pandemics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 166-175, March.
    3. Jinjing Li & Yogi Vidyattama & Hai Anh La & Riyana Miranti & Denisa M Sologon, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 and Policy Responses on Australian Income Distribution and Poverty," Papers 2009.04037, arXiv.org.
    4. Titan Alon & Matthias Doepke & Jane Olmstead-Rumsey & Michèle Tertilt, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_163, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Satya R. Chakravarty, 2019. "Ethically Flexible Measures of Poverty," Themes in Economics, in: Satya R. Chakravarty (ed.), Poverty, Social Exclusion and Stochastic Dominance, pages 13-26, Springer.
    6. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2023. "The short-term economic consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to disease, remote work and government response," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(3), pages 1-32, March.
    7. Adams-Prassl, Abi & Boneva, Teodora & Golin, Marta & Rauh, Christopher, 2020. "Inequality in the impact of the coronavirus shock: Evidence from real time surveys," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. AndrewE. Clark & Claudia Senik, 2010. "Who Compares to Whom? The Anatomy of Income Comparisons in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 573-594, May.
    9. Philippe Van Kerm, 2003. "Adaptive kernel density estimation," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 3(2), pages 148-156, June.
    10. Callum Jones & Thomas Philippon & Venky Venkateswaran, 2021. "Optimal Mitigation Policies in a Pandemic: Social Distancing and Working from Home [A simple planning problem for covid-19 lockdown]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5188-5223.
    11. Fabian Stephany & Niklas Stoehr & Philipp Darius & Leonie Neuhauser & Ole Teutloff & Fabian Braesemann, 2020. "The CoRisk-Index: A data-mining approach to identify industry-specific risk assessments related to COVID-19 in real-time," Papers 2003.12432, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2020.
    12. Jeehoon Han & Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2020. "Income and Poverty in the COVID-19 Pandemic," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(2 (Summer), pages 85-118.
    13. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00754447 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Jenkins, Stephen P & Lambert, Peter J, 1997. "Three 'I's of Poverty Curves, with an Analysis of UK Poverty Trends," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 317-327, July.
    15. Palomino, Juan C. & Rodríguez, Juan G. & Sebastian, Raquel, 2020. "Wage inequality and poverty effects of lockdown and social distancing in Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    16. Shorrocks, Anthony F, 1995. "Revisiting the Sen Poverty Index," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(5), pages 1225-1230, September.
    17. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2020. "The Fall in Income Inequality during COVID-19 in Five European Countries," Working Papers 565, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    18. Nina Haug & Lukas Geyrhofer & Alessandro Londei & Elma Dervic & Amélie Desvars-Larrive & Vittorio Loreto & Beate Pinior & Stefan Thurner & Peter Klimek, 2020. "Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide COVID-19 government interventions," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1303-1312, December.
    19. Thiemo Fetzer & Lukas Hensel & Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth, 2021. "Coronavirus Perceptions and Economic Anxiety," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(5), pages 968-978, December.
    20. Isaure Delaporte & Julia Escobar & Werner Peña, 2021. "The distributional consequences of social distancing on poverty and labour income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1385-1443, October.
    21. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew E. Clark & Anthony Lepinteur, 2022. "Pandemic Policy and Life Satisfaction in Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(2), pages 393-408, June.
    2. Herwig Immervoll & Felizia Pasteiner, 2025. "Weathering the storms? Minimum-income benefits as a crisis response," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 323, OECD Publishing.
    3. Lepinteur, Anthony & Clark, Andrew E. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Piper, Alan & Schröder, Carsten & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2022. "Gender, loneliness and happiness during COVID-19," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Adrian Adermon & Lisa Laun & Patrik Lind & Martin Olsson & Jan Sauermann & Anna Sjögren, 2024. "Earnings Losses and the Role of the Welfare State During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: Evidence from Sweden," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 70(4), pages 981-1010, December.
    5. Andrew Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur & Giorgia Menta, 2022. "Pandemic Policy and Individual Income Changes across Europe," Working Papers 600, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    6. Michael Christl & Silvia De Poli & Francesco Figari & Tine Hufkens & Chrysa Leventi & Andrea Papini & Alberto Tumino, 2024. "Monetary compensation schemes during the COVID-19 pandemic: implications for household incomes, liquidity constraints and consumption across the EU," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 22(2), pages 411-431, June.
    7. Astarita, Caterina & Alcidi, Cinzia, 2022. "Did the COVID-19 pandemic impact income distribution?," MPRA Paper 113851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Giulia Barletta & Finório Castigo & Eva‐Maria Egger & Michael Keller & Vincenzo Salvucci & Finn Tarp, 2022. "The impact of COVID‐19 on consumption poverty in Mozambique," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 771-802, May.
    9. Julio López Laborda & Carmen Marín González & Jorge Onrubia, 2022. "¿Cómo afectan los impuestos y las prestaciones públicas a los hogares en riesgo de pobreza?," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2022-10, FEDEA.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brodeur, Abel & Clark, Andrew E. & Fleche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2021. "COVID-19, lockdowns and well-being: Evidence from Google Trends," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    2. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2023. "The short-term economic consequences of COVID-19: Exposure to disease, remote work and government response," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(3), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Louis‐Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Derek Mikola & Taylor Wright, 2022. "The short‐term economic consequences of COVID‐19: Occupation tasks and mental health in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 214-247, February.
    4. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Wright, Taylor, 2021. "On the effects of COVID-19 safer-at-home policies on social distancing, car crashes and pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    5. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    6. Michael Christl & Silvia De Poli & Dénes Kucsera & Hanno Lorenz, 2022. "COVID-19 and (gender) inequality in income: the impact of discretionary policy measures in Austria," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 158(1), pages 1-17, December.
    7. Andrew Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur & Giorgia Menta, 2022. "Pandemic Policy and Individual Income Changes across Europe," Working Papers 600, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    8. Andrew E. Clark & Conchita D’Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2022. "Correction to: the Fall in Income Inequality during COVID-19 in Four European Countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(2), pages 503-507, June.
    9. Caperna, Giulio & Colagrossi, Marco & Geraci, Andrea & Mazzarella, Gianluca, 2020. "Googling Unemployment During the Pandemic: Inference and Nowcast Using Search Data," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2020-04, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    10. Brzezinski, Michal, 2021. "The impact of past pandemics on economic and gender inequalities," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    11. Claudio Zoli & Peter Lambert, 2012. "Sequential procedures for poverty gap dominance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 39(2), pages 649-673, July.
    12. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Makdissi, Paul & Wodon, Quentin, 2005. "Poverty-dominant program reforms: the role of targeting and allocation rules," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 53-73, June.
    13. Ainaa, Carmen & Brunetti, Irene & Mussida, Chiara & Scicchitano, Sergio, 2021. "Who lost the most? Distributive effects of COVID-19 pandemic," GLO Discussion Paper Series 829, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Isaure Delaporte & Julia Escobar & Werner Peña, 2021. "The distributional consequences of social distancing on poverty and labour income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1385-1443, October.
    15. Guven, Cahit & Sotirakopoulos, Panagiotis & Ulker, Aydogan, 2020. "Short-term Labour Market Effects of COVID-19 and the Associated National Lockdown in Australia: Evidence from Longitudinal Labour Force Survey," GLO Discussion Paper Series 635, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp068 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Inequalities in the times of a pandemic," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 5-41.
    18. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Makdissi, Paul & Wodon, Quentin, 2003. "Poverty-Efficient Transfer Programs: The Role of Targeting and Allocation Rules," Cahiers de recherche 0305, CIRPEE.
    19. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    20. Tobin Hanspal & Annika Weber & Johannes Wohlfart, 2020. "Exposure to the Covid-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations," CESifo Working Paper Series 8244, CESifo.
    21. Lea Immel & Florian Neumeier & Andreas Peichl, 2022. "The Unequal Consequences of the Covid‐19 Pandemic: Evidence from a Large Representative German Population Survey," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(2), pages 471-496, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2021-568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maria Ana Lugo The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Maria Ana Lugo to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecineea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.