All four countries had implemented lockdown measures by the end of March 2020; however, the levels of stringency varied across countries. Malawi had the least stringent measures, as the government suggested that people stay home but did not implement a full lockdown, and public transportation was still running as usual throughout 2020. Uganda had the strictest measures, while Nigeria started with stringent measures, but eased restrictions relatively early.

In each of the four countries, the government took steps to support citizens through new or existing cash transfer or public works programs. An example is seen in the expansion of social programs, frontloading payments, and supporting in-kind food distribution programs (Gentilini et al. 2021). Job protection or business support policies were very limited, especially in comparison to similar programs implemented in high-income countries. This is due to the informal nature of the majority of jobs and businesses in these economies. In a study of households’ coping strategies between April and September 2020 in the same four countries, Furbush et al. (2021) show that households mostly relied on savings and reduced food consumption to cope with health and economic shocks. Very few households reported receiving any kind of social assistance. Only in Uganda, only every fourth household reported received assistance (mostly inkind) by August 2020.

# **3. Data and Descriptive Statistics**

Our analysis combines Living Standards Measurement Study Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMSISA) pre-COVID-19 surveys with several rounds of HFPS conducted during the pandemic in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda. In this section, we describe the data sources and present summary statistics of key employment and income indicators.

## **LSMS-ISA pre-COVID-19 surveys**

The LSMS-ISA project is an initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) that supports governments in eight African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Burkina Faso. The goal is to generate several rounds of nationally representative panel surveys with a multi-topic approach, designed to improve the understanding of the links between agriculture, socioeconomic status, and non-farm income activities. This paper uses data from the latest rounds of LSMS-ISA surveys from four countries: Ethiopia (September/December 2018 and June/August 2019), Malawi (April 2019 to March 2020), Nigeria (July/August 2018 and January/February2019), and Uganda (March 2019 to February 2020).

In particular, we use respondents’ industry of work from the LSMS-ISA data to complement the HFPS data for our analysis of the labor market impacts of COVID-19. Here, we also summarize the LSMS-ISA data on employment status disaggregated by gender to describe the pre-COVID-19 labor market in each of the four countries.

The pre-COVID-19 LSMS-ISA surveys show that labor force participation was between 58% and 70% before the onset of the pandemic (Figure 3); participation being highest in Uganda and lowest in Ethiopia. In all four countries, the labor force participation of women was below that of men and the gender difference was largest in Ethiopia, with 20% of men and 40% of women economically inactive.

In all four countries, a large share of the working population is employed in the agriculture sector. Before the pandemic, Nigeria had the most diverse workforce, with four out of ten workers in the agriculture sector, and two out of ten in commerce (Figure 4). In Ethiopia, almost eight out of ten workers were in agriculture.

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