Reproducibility package for Lives, Livelihoods, And Learning: A Global Perspective On The Well-Being Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic

This study develops a common framework to compare the magnitude of national level losses that the COVID-19 pandemic inflicted across three critical dimensions – loss of life, loss of income, and loss of learning – and then explores the global distribution of such losses. To help inform public discussions, the well-being consequences of excess mortality are expressed in years of life lost, while those of income losses and school closures are expressed in additional person-years spent in poverty, either currently or in the future (due to lower growth). While 2020–21 witnessed a global drop in life expectancy and the largest one-year increase in global poverty in many decades, widespread school closures may cause almost twice as large an increase in future poverty. The estimates of well-being loss for the average global citizen include a loss of 8 days of life, an additional two and half weeks spent in poverty in 2020 and 2021 (17 days), and the possibility of an additional month of life in poverty in the future due to school closures (31 days). The distribution of pandemic costs was highly unequal globally. While aggregating total losses requires the valuation of a year of life lost vis-à-vis an additional year spent in poverty, high-income countries experienced the lowest well-being losses for a wide range of valuations. Aggregate losses were much higher among lower-income countries, especially countries in the Latin America region who suffered the largest mortality costs as well as large losses in learning and sharp increases in poverty.