Inequalities in Job Loss and Income Loss in Sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 Crisis

This paper uses high-frequency phone survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda toanalyze the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on work (including wage employment, self-employment, and farm work)and income, as well as heterogeneity by gender, family composition, education, age, pre-COVID19 industry of work,and between the rural and urban sectors. The paper links phone survey data collected throughout the pandemic topre-COVID-19 face-to-face survey data to track the employment of respondents who were working before thepandemic and analyze individual-level indicators of job loss and re-employment. Finally, it analyzes both immediateimpacts, during the first few months of the pandemic, as well as longer run impacts through February/March 2021. Thefindings show that in the early phase of the pandemic, women, young, and urban workers were significantly morelikely to lose their jobs. A year after the onset of the pandemic, these inequalities disappeared and educationbecame the main predictor of joblessness. The analysis finds significant rural/urban, age, and education gradients inhousehold-level income loss. Households with income fromnonfarm enterprises were the most likely to report income loss, in the short run as well as the longer run.