COVID-19 induced economic loss and ensuring food security for vulnerable groups: Policy implications from Bangladesh.

Khondoker Abdul Mottaleb,Tetsushi Sonobe,Mohammed Mainuddin,Yacob Zereyesus

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240709

Abstract

At present nearly half of the world’s population is under some form of government restriction to curb the spread of COVID-19, an extremely contagious disease. In Bangladesh, in the wake of five deaths and 48 infections from COVID-19, between March 24 and May 30, 2020, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown. While this lockdown restricted the spread of COVID-19, in the absence of effective support, it can generate severe food and nutrition insecurity for daily wage-based workers. Of the 61 million employed labor force in Bangladesh, nearly 35% of them are paid on a daily basis. This study examines the food security and welfare impacts of the COVID-19 induced lockdown on daily wage workers both in the farm and nonfarm sectors in Bangladesh. Using information from more than 50,000 respondents complied with the 2016–17 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in Bangladesh, this study estimates daily wage rates as Bangladesh Taka (BDT) 272.2 in the farm sector and BDT 361.5 in the nonfarm sector. Using the estimated daily wage earnings, this study estimates that a one-day complete lockdown generates a US$64.2 million equivalent economic loss only considering the wage loss of the daily wage workers. After estimating the daily per capita food expenditure separately for farm and nonfarm households, this study estimates a minimum compensation package for the daily wage-based farm and nonfarm households around the US $ 1 per day per household to ensure minimum food security for the daily wage-based worker households.

Highlights

By September 14, 2020, nearly 29 million people in 216 countries and territories have been sickened by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) or COVID19 [1]
To our knowledge, there is no solid study based on microdata that examines the economic loss due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the minimum compensation required to ensure the basic nutrition of the poor households
Half of the world’s population is under some form of restrictions imposed by national governments to curb the spread of COVID-19

Summary

Introduction

By September 14, 2020, nearly 29 million people in 216 countries and territories have been sickened by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) or COVID19 [1]. To curb the spread of this disease, national governments have imposed varying levels of movement restrictions. By April 7, 2020, national governments of 32 countries and territories in Asia, 43 in Europe, 38 in the Americas and the Caribbean, and 44 in Africa imposed varying levels of movement restrictions [7]. Studies and opinions warned that the COVID-19 lockdown and restricted labor movement could generate havoc across the world [8, 9], and could cause severe global food shortages by disrupting the supply chain [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. To our knowledge, there is no solid study based on microdata that examines the economic loss due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the minimum compensation required to ensure the basic nutrition of the poor households

Methods

Results

Conclusion