Covid-19-induced Shocks, Access to Basic Needs and Coping Strategies

Abstract

We examine the association between the Covid-19 pandemic and and access to basic needs, and how households respond using various coping strategies in the context of Nigeria. We use data from the Covid-19 National Longitudinal Phone Surveys (Covid-19 NLPS-2020) conducted during the Covid-19 lockdown. Our findings reveal that the Covid-19 pandemic is associated with households’ exposure to shocks such as illness or injury, disruption of farming, job losses, non-farm business closure, and increase in price of food items and farming inputs. These negative shocks have severe consequences on access to basic needs of households, and the outcomes are heterogeneous across gender of household head and rural–urban residence. Households adopt a number of coping strategies, both formal and informal to mitigate the effects of the shocks on access to basic needs. The findings of this paper lend credence to the growing evidence on need to support households exposed to negative shocks and the role of formal coping mechanisms for households in developing countries.