Socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Employment, Income Loss, Food Security, and Social Protection in Pakistan: Evidence from National Survey Data

Abstract

This COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted livelihoods, labour markets, and food security worldwide, with particularly adverse consequences for developing countries. This study examines the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on people’s well-being in Pakistan by analysing nationally representative secondary data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ Special Survey for Evaluating the Socio-economic Impact of COVID-19 on People’s Well-being (2020). Using a two-stage stratified random sample of 31,022 households, the study employs descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis to investigate the effects of job loss due to migration, household coping strategies, and social protection programs on unemployment, income loss, and food insecurity. The findings reveal that job loss and coping strategies significantly increased unemployment, income loss, and food insecurity during the pandemic. Social protection programs, primarily cash transfer schemes, showed limited effectiveness in mitigating these socio-economic hardships, reflecting structural weaknesses in coverage, targeting, and support for informal-sector workers. The study concludes that short-term cash assistance alone is insufficient to address large-scale socio-economic crises and emphasises the need for comprehensive labour-market interventions, targeted welfare reforms, and inclusive social protection systems. These findings provide important policy insights for strengthening crisis governance and socio-economic resilience in Pakistan and similar developing economies.