Inequalities in job and income loss in countries with high prevalence of informal employment in Sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 crisis

This paper uses high frequency phone survey data from 4 Sub-Saharan African countries with high levels of informality (Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda) to analyze 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-COVID-19 industry of work, and between the rural and urban sectors. The paper links phone survey data collected throughout the pandemic to pre-COVID-19 face-to-face survey data to track the employment of respondents who were working before the pandemic and analyze individual-level indicators of job loss and re-employment as a way to measure changes in work in informal economies. Finally, it analyzes both immediate impacts, during the first few months of the pandemic, as well as longer-run impacts through February/March 2021. The findings show that in the early phase of the pandemic, women, young, and urban workers were significantly more likely to lose their jobs. A year after the onset of the pandemic, these inequalities disappeared, and education became the main predictor of joblessness. The analysis finds significant rural/urban, age, and education gradients in household level income loss. Households with income from non-farm enterprises were the most likely to report income loss, in the short run as well as the longer run.