Deciphering the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on food security across different socioeconomic strata in Chile

Abstract The disruptive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food supply has underscored the need for localized household assessments of food insecurity, particularly in developing countries where such data may be limited. Consequently, this study aims to assess the economic access to food for Chilean households in the pre- and post-pandemic scenarios. We utilized an Almost Ideal Demand System, leveraging Household Consumption Surveys to estimate the cross and own expenditure elasticities among food categories. And, to gauge the potential impact of prices on food security the quantities of food that households acquired were nutritionally scored by income quintile. Our findings pre- and post-pandemic revealed a prioritization of Meats, Grains & Cereals and Fruit & Vegetables across all households, irrespective of their socioeconomic quintile. Moreover, post-pandemic is observed a tendency towards lower-income households experiencing a higher price increment than higher-income households (p-value < 0.0001). The implementation of social protection policies, plus the articulation of agrarian, food and nutritional policies, is observed as vital for addressing food insecurity and alleviating poverty.