The impact of COVID-19 on education in Latin America: Long-run implications on poverty and inequality

Abstract

The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the human capital formation of children and youths. As a consequence of this disruption, the pandemic is likely to imply permanent lower levels of human capital. In this paper we provide new evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 and school closures on education in Latin America by exploiting harmonized microdata from a large set of national household surveys carried out in 2020. In addition, we assess via microsimulations the potential effect of changes in human capital due to the COVID-19 crisis on future income distributions. We find that the pandemic is likely to have significant longrun consequences in terms of incomes and poverty if strong compensatory measures are not taken soon.