Keywords: covid-19, households, livelihood, Nigeria
Introduction
The covid-19 pandemic is one of the most devastating events that has
disrupted and impacted on the economic social and physical activities in
livelihood of households all over the world. According to World Health
Organization-WHO (2020) and International Monetary Fund-IMF (2020) the
Pandemic spread like a wild fire to over two hundred (200) countries
around the world and brings on the most economic slowdown since the
Great depression. Covid-19 Pandemic was first identified in Wuhan,
China, causing massive death and has spread to almost all parts of the
world (Akanni & Gabriel, 2020). WHO (2021), reported that globally, as
of 29 September 2021, that there have been 232,636,622 confirmed
cases of covid-19 with 4,762,089 number of deaths. In addition, the
Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reported that as of 29
September 2021, there have been a total number of 205,484 confirmed
cases with 9,286 of active cases and 2,702 deaths cases of covid-19 in
Nigeria.
In addition, the disease covid-19 not only signifies a global public
health emergency but has also become an international economic problem
that is likely to expand inequalities and affect poor and vulnerable
populations. The covid-19 has led to nearly shutdown of the world’s
economy as airports, supermarkets, seaports, parks, stadiums, cinemas,
hotels, restaurants among others were closed(World Bank, 2020). These
have gradually milled world economies. In addition, the pandemic shocks
have led to closure of international boarders across the world, a punch
on globalization by all countries. This obviously calls for
self-reflection, forcing countries to search inward to survive
especially countries like Nigeria that are export dependent. Thus,
covid-19 pandemic has created the conditions that are equivalent to
levels of deprivation last seen in the mid-1980s (UNDP, 2020).
The pandemic has resulted in a drastic decrease of exports, particularly
raw materials; a decline in commodity prices to historical lows; a sharp
decline in services especially tourism; and a steep reduction in
remittances. This necessitates direct costs related to morbidity, health
care, and uncertainty. Moreover, the indirect costs in terms of
containment and mitigation measures imposed to reduce the spread of the
disease include reduction of labour, production capacity, productivity
and erosion of human capital (World Bank, 2020). The Bank further noted
that, the pandemic has negatively created demand, supply and welfare
shocks on individuals and households for all countries. From the demand
and supply sides, the pandemic has caused the reductions of people’s
ability to work and firms to produce; it lowers the incentive for people
to consume and for firms to invest. It may hurt low- and middle-income
countries disproportionately because they lack the resources and
capacity to deal with systemic shocks, having larger informal sectors,
shallower financial markets, less fiscal space, and less developed
institutions and governance.
Considerably, coronavirus has negative effect on households’ income due
to illness and decline in formal and non-formal employment and
remittances. Disruptions in the delivery of essential goods and
services, including health care, education and nutrition. Thus, erode
not only welfare but also human capital and future productivity.
Furthermore, the epidemic adversely affected women and other vulnerable
groups outside the formal social protection system. Moreover, the
corrosion in welfare, closure of educational institutions and other
services, and the increase in stress and violence can have irreversible
negative consequences for adolescent girls and children. Disability,
ethnic, religious, or geographic characteristics may further worsen the
negative effect from the pandemic. Hence, the pandemic has produced
adverse effects on poverty, vulnerability and human capital especially
in low-and middle-income countries (World Bank, 2020).
It is against this background that this study seeks to examine the
effect of covid-19 pandemic on households’ livelihood in Sokoto State.
The framework depicted in Figure I explains the possible channels
through which covid-19 pandemic may likely affect the livelihood of
households within the dimensions of the social, economic, cultural and
physiological perspectives.