Socio-economic status, resilience, and vulnerability of households under COVID-19: Case of village-level data in Sichuan province.

Imran Ur Rahman,Liu Junrong,Mohsin Shafi,Deng Jian,Md Nazirul Islam Sarker

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249270

Imran Ur Rahman, Liu Junrong + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249270

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Apr 29, 2021
Citations: 35	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Leshan Normal University

Abstract

This paper investigates economic impacts of COVID-19 on households based on differences in the socio-economic status (SES). We determine the household-level effects of the COVID-19 shock using income sources, types of industries, communities’ resilience, household susceptibility, and relevant policy measures. For this purpose, we used primary data of 555 households collected through snowball sampling technique using an online survey questionnaire from different villages mostly located in Sichuan Province, China. Using step-wise binary logistic regression analysis, we estimated and validated the model. Results suggest the use of SES as a better measure for understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on different households. We find that households with low SES tend to depend more on farmland income and transfer payments from the government. Contrarily, high SES households focus more on business and local employment as sources of income generation. Poor households were less resilient and more likely to fall back into poverty due to COVID-19, while the opposite stands true for non-poor households with high SES. Based on the estimations, policies encouraging employment and businesses complemented with loans on lower interest rates are recommended, which may increase the SES, thus minimizing vulnerability and enhancing the households’ resilience towards poverty alleviation and economic shocks.

Highlights

Ever since the beginning of 2020, the world economy has been shocked by a new form of coronavirus termed as Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) or COVID-19 [1]
This paper examined the difference in impacts of COVID-19 on households based on the socio-economic differences in the villages of Sichuan province, China
This study assesses the likelihood of the households’ socio-economic status (SES) conditions to see if there are any disparities in the level of resilience to COVID-19 and households’ ability to avoid falling into absolute poverty

Summary

Introduction

Ever since the beginning of 2020, the world economy has been shocked by a new form of coronavirus termed as Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (NCP) or COVID-19 [1]. There is still a gap and dire need to address this issue and come up with a better and sustainable approach especially designed for protecting and supporting the poor and vulnerable communities Based on these observations, it is essential to understand and study the impacts of the COVID-19 on the different households and the main causes that highlight the disparities in the likelihood of the households to be in higher or lower SES level. Based on these observations, it is important to understand and study the impacts of the COVID-19 on the different households and the main causes that highlight the disparities in the likelihood of the households to be in higher or lower SES level.

Literature review

Methodology

Results and findings

Discussion

Limitations