Socio-Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Households in Indonesia: Three Rounds of Monitoring Surveys

Highlights

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented social and economic challenges for Indonesia. Mobility restriction measures have helped to curb the spread of the virus and saved lives, but have also created a socio-economic crisis for many Indonesian families. Income inequality has risen during this pandemic as economic shocks have most strongly impacted the poorest and most vulnerable households.

To better understand these challenges, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Australia Indonesia Partnership for Economic Development (Prospera-DFAT) and the SMERU Research Institute carried out a series of assessments of COVID-19’s impact on diverse socio-economic dimensions including employment, income, resilience to shocks, schooling, reach of social protection, and access to immunization and other health services.

In November 2020, a nationally representative survey, was carried out to understand the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on households with children, women, and people with disabilities. Between December 2020 and January 2021, an additional three rounds of rapid surveys were carried out with the same 2,400 households from the initial survey, this time using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) rather than the original face-to-face methods.

These follow-up surveys paint a picture of a period that, while the country was resuming its economic activity and working towards full economic recovery, at household level the recovery remained fragile. During this time, at least one member of every two households lost their job. Approximately 45 per cent of households with children struggled to find enough nutritious food to feed their families, with many eating smaller portions than usual. Challenges with learning were reported by nine in-10 respondents with school-aged children.