Abstract
The shock on human capital caused by COVID-19 is likely to have long lasting consequences, especially for children of low-educated families. Applying a counterfactual exercise we project the effects of school closures and other lockdown policies on the intergenerational persistence of education in 17 Latin American countries. First, we retrieve detailed information on school lockdowns and on the policies enacted to support education from home in each country. Then, we use these information to estimate the potential impact of the pandemic on schooling, high school completion, and intergenerational associations. In addition, we account for educational disruptions related to household income shocks. Our findings show that, despite that mitigation policies were able to partly reduce instructional losses in some countries, the educational attainment of the most vulnerable could be seriously affected. In particular, the likelihood of children from low educated families to attain a secondary schooling degree could fall substantially.
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Acknowledgments
This paper benefited greatly from the thoughtful suggestions of the editor, Philippe Van Kerm, and two anonymous referees. We are also grateful to Stephen Kaplan, Michael Wolfson, Raquel Fernandez, James Foster, Emilia Del Bono, and Daniel Heymann, as well as the participants of presentations at the IMF, ZEW, Universidad de San Andres, Universidad Nacional de Cordoba, ISER, and the UNDP-CEQ Institute-CGEP-SEGIB group of experts “The economy of the pandemic and social protection in Latin America”. We would like to thank Melanie Gross, Valentina Martinez Pabón, and Facundo Pernigotti for their excellent research assistance. Guido Neidhöfer acknowledges funding by the Volkswagen Foundation (Project “Analyses of the Costs and Benefits of School Closures for the Containment of COVID-19”).
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Neidhöfer, G., Lustig, N. & Tommasi, M. Intergenerational transmission of lockdown consequences: prognosis of the longer-run persistence of COVID-19 in Latin America. J Econ Inequal 19, 571–598 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09501-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-021-09501-x
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Lockdowns
- Human capital
- School closures
- Intergenerational persistence
- Education
- Inequality
- Latin America
JEL codes
- I24
- I38
- J62