COVID-19 in Latin America: The Role of Social Protections for Households with Children

We will specifically examine:

a. The actual access to and sufficiency of cash transfers, in-kind transfers (primarily food) and services (primarily health care) during the pandemic
b. The effects of social protection on key indicators of well-being, by comparing children and families with and without social protection and with different sufficiency and quality of social protection
c. The role of social protection in households’ willingness/ability to adhere to social distancing measures, issues of attribution and perceptions of role of government.

Given the particular vulnerability of children (almost half of children in Latin America lived in poverty already before the pandemic) and the fact that their wellbeing has been less visible (with physical school closures and shelter-at-home policies), systematic surveys of households with children are imperative. Yet, to date, we do not have them.

We plan to fill this gap. The experience of this past year allows us to systematically study in real time variables related to (i) the socioeconomic shock created by social distancing, (ii) the social protection programs deployed to cope with this shock; and (iii) how these programs affected and mitigated adverse effects on the wellbeing of households with children.

Our research project will be conducted by the principal investigator, Merike Blofield, and Juliana Martínez Franzoni, Professor of Comparative Social Policy and Humboldt Chair (2021) at the University of Costa Rica, the top-ranked university in Central America, and leading expert in social protection in Latin America. The project is international by its nature, and we seek to publish results in peer-reviewed journals and policy platforms.