FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – A majority working in the shadows lockdown that severely restricted movement, imposed cur­fews or fully closed all borders. In Côte d’Ivoire after the first cases were diagnosed in March 2020, the government implemented containment measures. Lockdown measures included traffic limitations between Abidjan and the rest of the country to contain the spreading of the pandemic. The government implemented measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 in three steps. First, on 16.3.2020, the government closed land, air and sea borders indefinitely. It also made information available to passengers entering the country, while improving con­tact monitoring and tracing. From 23.3.2020, schools were closed and events, ceremonies and gatherings of more than 50 people were banned. Non-essential retail businesses, as well as bars, restaurants and entertainment venues had to close. In addition, a curfew was established from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. in Abidjan. Finally, on 31.3.2020, the authorities restricted travel between Abidjan and rural areas, with the exception of freight transport and basic services. Most meas­ures were lifted successively in July 2020. As the level and intensity of containment measures were less stringent in rural areas than in urban areas and, in particular, in the capital cities, it is possible that the negative economic impacts on the informal economy are larger in urban areas. To examine whether this is the case, the analysis will differ­entiate between the capital city, other urban and rural areas. 5.3 RESULTS 5.3.1 Employment One of the main economic outcomes of the analysis concerns employment. As many members of the informal economy depend on their daily earnings for survival, it is important to examine whether the pandemic and the lockdown measures have affected opportunities to work or whether respondents lost their jobs because of the Covid-19 crisis. Most people in informal employment reside in rural areas and the majority are engaged in agriculture. Considering this, the pandemic’s relative employment impacts are likely to remain small in rural areas. In urban areas, the concern about negative employment effects is more real. Figure 5.1 shows the share of households in which one or several household members have lost their job/working opportunity because of the pandemic. 1 On average, 30 per cent of households in Côte d’Ivoire indicated that they had lost their job/working opportunity, and 20 per cent of households in Ethiopia. The differences between urban and rural areas are large in both countries. It seems that twice as many people in urban areas indicated a loss of work opportunities than in rural areas. 5.3.2 Household income In order to understand the effects of the pandemic and the lockdown measures on household incomes, household heads or the most knowledgeable person in the household were asked to compare recent household income to household income at the same time of the year before the pandemic. The response options are typically qualitative, for example: »incomes were lower«,»same« or»higher«. While these re­sponses provide some idea of the direction of income trends, they are very difficult to interpret when it comes to the mag­nitude or severity of income loss(De Weerdt, 2008). Thus, household heads or the most knowledgeable person in the household were asked to provide an estimate of the amount of household income. This makes it possible to calculate the relative fall in household income as a result of the pandemic. All income indicators are self-reported estimates and retro­spective, but responses may also be affected by expectations about future income streams amid widespread uncertainty during the pandemic. With these important caveats in mind, Figure 5.2 shows the shares of households in both countries that reported having experienced a decrease of household income because of the pandemic. Some 60 per cent of the households in Côte d’Ivoire and 56 per cent in Ethiopia indi­cated that they had had lower household incomes in recent months as a consequence of the pandemic/policy responses. While in Côte d’Ivoire we see no significant differences be­tween urban and rural areas, rural areas in Ethiopia seem to have been much less affected by the negative income consequences of the pandemic compared with urban areas. This result is in line with the findings on employment losses showing the smallest effects in rural Ethiopia. 1 Please note that this analysis is focused on households in which at least one household member is in informal employment. Figure 5.1 Loss of work opportunity or job because of Covid-19 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 45.1% 42.3% 22.7% 32.7% 32.5% 18.9% 0% Côte d’Ivoire Ethiopia Capital city Other urban areas Rural areas 42