## **Results: One-year impacts**

As explained above, given the nature of the HFPS data, we can analyze income loss after the first year of the pandemic only for Uganda and Nigeria. The results for one-year income loss (Table 4) show that the only demographic factor significantly related to income loss is the interaction between female household head and children aged 5-18 (significant at the 10 percent level). Compared to male-headed households, income loss was nine percentage points more likely in female-headed households with children age 5-18. In addition, income loss by early 2021 is associated with the different sources of income households relied on during the 12 months before HFPS R1. NFE income and income from domestic remittances are associated with higher probability of income loss. In the medium run, these were the most vulnerable sources of income, relative to farm income, wage income, and remittances from abroad.

# **6. Discussion and conclusions**

In this paper, we analyze high frequency phone survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda to document the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on employment and income. We focus on heterogeneity by gender, family composition, education, age, job industry, and between the rural and urban sectors. For employment, we compare the early-phase impacts (up to July 2020) with the medium-term (up to February/March 2021).

By July 2020, job loss had affected 18% to 30% of respondents in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda, and a striking 61% of respondents in Nigeria. In all countries, with the exception of Ethiopia, the rate of job loss continued to increase after July 2020. Even without necessarily losing employment, many households were affected in terms of income. Between March and June 2020, 46% of respondents in Ethiopia and more than 75% of respondents in Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda reported a loss of household income. After one year into the pandemic, 41% of respondents in Nigeria and 49% in Uganda reported household income loss.

We find significant inequalities in the impacts of the pandemic on employment and income. In the early phase of the pandemic, job loss was relatively concentrated among urban, young, and female workers. Within urban areas, women with young children were disproportionately affected. In the longer run, however, the pattern of inequality in employment looks different. By February/March 2021, gender, age, and urban location are no longer related to joblessness, while education appears to be a key predictor. A year after the onset of the pandemic, respondents with less than a primary education were significantly less likely to be working than respondents with more education.

We further find that in the early phase of the pandemic, households relying on non-farm enterprise income were most likely to report a decline in household income, while income from wage employment was relatively secure. Inequalities in the probability of losing income vary across sources. Women and young household heads were disproportionately affected in terms of NFE income, while wage income losses were relatively more likely in households with younger or less educated household heads. For total household income, early-phase income loss is strongly predicted by younger, less educated household heads, urban location, and the presence of children.

For Nigeria and Uganda, we also analyze the probability of income loss in early 2021 compared to prepandemic income. Households that received NFE income or income from domestic remittances before the pandemic were more likely to report income loss, so in the medium run these appear to be the most vulnerable income sources. We find no significant relationship between household demographics and the probability of income loss.

Our findings complement previous studies that have documented the extent of job loss and income loss in low- and middle-income countries, by tracing pre-COVID-19 workers up to a year after the start of the pandemic (similar to Alfonsi et al. 2022, who focus on highly educated urban workers in Uganda). The early-phase gender and rural/urban disparities in job loss in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda were 20