Relative deprivation and the differential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poor in Mexico

Abstract

One of the main challenges to studying the effects of the pandemic on poverty has been the lack of adequate data. Very few countries have short-term poverty data and most official surveys are rather rigid and were incapable of adding any special modules to jointly study COVID-19 and poverty. Furthermore, many poverty measures rely on indicators of unsatisfied basic needs (UBN) that, albeit useful to characterise exclusion from essential services, are not sensitive to short-term effects on the resources of the population. This study uses data from the Encovid-19 to jointly study poverty and some of the consequences of the pandemic on the Mexican population. This survey included a short module to measure poverty using the consensual deprivation approach. Once the poor were reliably identified in the survey, the study analysed differences in coping mechanisms, occupation, and perceived COVID-19 consequences between the poor and the not poor. From the methodological point of view, the study shows how the consensual approach has the advantage of producing valid and reliable poverty figures at a low cost. The findings clearly show that the poor were clearly most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.