Income Shocks and Food Insecurity Prediction: Vietnam Under the Pandemic

Abstract

As COVID-19 threatens the food security of vulnerable populations across the globe, there is an increasing need to identify places that are affected most in order to target aid. We propose a two-step approach to predict changes in food insecurity risk caused by income shocks at a locality level only using existing household-level data and external information about income shocks. Using national household survey data between 2010 and 2018, we find that a 10% decrease in income leads to a 3.5% increase in food insecurity. We use the 2019 national Labor Force Survey to predict changes in food insecurity risk caused by the income shocks during the pandemic for 702 districts in Vietnam. We find that the small, predicted change in food insecurity at the national level masks substantial variation at the district level, and changes in food insecurity risk are higher among young children. Food relief policies, therefore, should prioritize a small number of districts predicted to be severely affected.