COVID-19 in South Asia : An Unequal Shock, An Uncertain Recovery - Findings on Labor Market Impacts from Round 1 of the SAR COVID Phone Monitoring Surveys
All countries across South Asia, faced with the rising risks of COVID-19 infection rates, implemented severe economic lockdowns in early 2020 with varying frequencies and time periods. While the exact nature and duration of these lockdowns varied a...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, DC
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099935004122217925/P1740830e158760e0bcd7073aba657e28b http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37320 |
| Summary: | All countries across South Asia,
faced with the rising risks of COVID-19 infection rates,
implemented severe economic lockdowns in early 2020 with
varying frequencies and time periods. While the exact nature
and duration of these lockdowns varied across countries in
the South Asia Region (SAR), almost all SAR countries
imposed their first economic lockdown in late March 2020 in
response to the growing health threat of COVID-19
infections. In India, for instance, the national lockdown
was first introduced in late March 2020, which coincided
with the imposition of similar lockdowns in Bangladesh,
Nepal, and Sri Lanka, followed by a national lockdown in
Pakistan on April 1, 2020. By April 17, 2020, the population
of all SAR countries was under severe lockdown with varying
rules and conditions based on national or local directives.
The introduction of these lockdowns led to a drastic, abrupt
disruption in all forms of physical mobility and economic
activities. Trends from the Google COVID-19 Community
Mobility data reveal this sharp drop in day-to-day mobility
related to four different types of economic activity across
6 out of 8 SAR countries for which this data was available.
Figure 1 plots the daily change in the Google Mobility
index, which is constructed by taking an equally weighted
mean across the four dimensions of economic activity for the
five weeks before March 2020. In the six SAR countries, the
average mobility remained approximately, on average, 58
percent below their respective pre-COVID levels during the
first week of the lockdown. For example, in Nepal, where the
lockdown was first introduced on March 24, 2020, mobility
(as measured by the Google Mobility index) was 66 percent
below pre-COVID levels on the first day of the lockdown; and
it remained, on average, 71.5 percent below per-COVID levels
between March 24, 2020, and March 30, 2020. We observe a
similar pattern of immediate and large disruptions in
mobility in all SAR countries, except in Afghanistan (22.5
percent below pre-COVID levels), where restrictions were
more localized. The Google Mobility index closely follows
these changes in rules and conditions in SAR countries,
which varied over time within each country as well as across
countries. In countries like Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka,
with an extended period of restrictions imposed through
national or local directives at different points in time,
mobility had not returned to pre-COVID levels even as late
as April 2021. In Nepal and Sri Lanka, where the second
lockdown was introduced in August and November 2020,
respectively, we observe a sharp drop again in mobility
after a gradual recovery following the easing of the first
lockdown. In other SAR countries like Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, and Pakistan, mobility only returned to
pre-COVID levels between September and October 2020. These
results underscore the dramatic and prolonged impact that
COVID-19 induced lockdowns have had on mobility and economic
activity, which is perhaps unprecedented in the region, at
least in recent history4. These lockdowns are likely to have
important implications on various socio-economic dimensions
of welfare, including labor market outcomes, both
immediately and in the medium, to long-term. More
importantly, the long-term impacts will also be determined
by the nature and the pace of recovery observed in these
countries in the months and years after the initial phase of
lockdown. Moreover, the emergence of new mutants leaves open
the possibility of future lockdowns as a policy response to
mitigate the health effects of the virus, which could impact
economic activity and reverse observed recoveries. |
|---|