Poverty and Equity Notes - The 2021 Brazil COVID-19 Phone Survey - Findings on Labor Market, Income, and Education Trends

Jul 19, 2026

Poverty and Equity Notes (April 2022) summarizes findings from the 2021 Brazil COVID-19 Phone Survey on labor market conditions, household income, coping strategies, food security, and access to education services. The note highlights that employment had not returned to pre-pandemic levels, with women and people without higher education facing greater difficulty in regaining work. It also documents a deterioration in job quality through higher informality and fewer working hours, while many households experienced lower incomes and relied on debt or asset drawdowns. Finally, disruptions in schooling are linked to potential learning gaps and long-run welfare risks, especially for children in poorer regions attending public schools.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

Main messages

Labor market impacts

Job loss and employment rates

Education disruptions and long-run welfare

Survey overview and methods

Coverage and representativeness

Data collection period

Key issues addressed

Income, coping mechanisms, and food security

POVERTY AND EQUITY NOTES APRIL 2022 The 2021 Brazil COVID-19 Phone Survey Findings on labor market, income, and education trends Public Disc losure Authorized Pub lic Disc losure Authorized Main messages: 􀁸 A year and half into the pandemic, employment had not recovered yet to pre-pandemic levels, with women and the population without higher education finding it harder to get back into employment. 􀁸 Women and those with lower levels of education experienced greater job loss than did other groups of the population. 􀁸 The quality of employment deteriorated during the pandemic, with higher informality rates and fewer hours of employment. 􀁸 About 45 percent of households had lower incomes compared with the pre-pandemic period, despite widespread emergency cash support from the government. 􀁸 Households resorted to coping strategies to cover essential expenditures, like incurring debt or drawing down assets. Close to 1 in 5 households had run out of food because of a lack of money or resources. 􀁸 Monetary values deemed necessary to cover basic needs suggest that the population in need of cash support might be bigger than what social protection currently covers. 􀁸 Disruptions in schooling threaten to result in learning gaps and will affect welfare in the long run if not addressed now. Children living in poorer regions and attending public schools were affected the most by the disruptions. 􀁸 Preventing short-term impacts on human capital from translating into long-term welfare losses, while continuing to cushion the impacts of income reductions on the poor and vulnerable, will be a priority going forward. Starting as a severe health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly affected the Brazilian population in many other dimensions. Throughout the pandemic, Brazil has been one of the countries with the highest cumulative death toll worldwide, second only to the United States.1 In both 2020 and 2021, the number of daily new infections in Brazil was among the highest globally.2 The health crisis, precautionary behavior and measures putin place to contain the spread of the virus, and the resulting drop in economic activity both in and out of Brazil ended up affecting people’s ability to earn an income, households’ capacity to satisfy basic needs, and children’s 1 Based on data from Our World in Data, accessed March 30, 2022, [https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus](https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus). 2 Ibid. This note was prepared by Anna Luisa Paffhausen, Ricardo Campante C. Vale, Carlos Alberto Castaneda Castrillon, and Gabriel Lara Ibarra. Brazil 2021 COVID-19 Phone Survey POVERTY AND EQUITY NOTES APRIL 2022 opportunities to learn. Negative impacts along these dimensions can have implications for poverty and equity, some of which can extend far beyond the immediate term. Phone survey data provide insights on how the population has been faring during the pandemic. To get a sense of how the pandemic has affected Brazilian households, a phone survey was implemented in 2021 that covered various aspects of relevance to the welfare of the population. Between July 26 and October 1, 2021, data were collected from 2,166 surveys across all states in Brazil. Results are nationally representative for adults (ages 18 and older) that own a phone. The survey was inspired by the Latin America and the Caribbean High Frequency Phone Surveys.3 This note presents the survey’s findings about how the pandemic was affecting the labor market, income, coping mechanisms, food security, and access to education services at the time of the survey. Impacts on the Labor Market More than a year into the pandemic, employment had not recovered yet to pre-pandemic levels, with women and the population without higher education finding it harder to get back into employment. At the national level, according to the Brazil COVID-19 Phone Survey, 71 percent of the population ages 18 or older were employed in mid-2021 (Figure 1

FAQs

What were the main labor market findings from the 2021 Brazil COVID-19 phone survey?

Employment had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, with women and people without higher education facing greater difficulty returning to work. Employment-to-population rates for women declined more sharply over the pandemic.

How did job quality change during the pandemic?

The quality of employment deteriorated, with higher informality and fewer hours of employment compared with pre-pandemic conditions.

What effects did the pandemic have on education, and why does it matter for welfare?

Disruptions in schooling threaten learning gaps and can affect welfare in the long run. Children in poorer regions and in public schools were reported as most affected.

Jul 19, 2026

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