**3. Home office option**

In order to reduce the negative labor-market impacts arising from the lockdown measures to flatten the curve, many governments are encouraging their residents to work from home [18]. A recent policy brief of the International Labour Organization indicated that with the pandemic, 59 countries had implemented telework for nonessential publicly employed staff [1]. In Brazil, a phone-interview survey conducted on 03/20/2020 reported that 46 percent of respondents believed that it would indeed be possible to carry out their employment duties via home office [19]. However empirical evidence shows that the chance to work from home is not distributed equally across the population, since many occupations such as

<sup>1</sup> The PNAD COVID-19 database is publicly available on the website of IBGE. See data collection instrument (available here) and microdata files (available here).

#### **Figure 1.**

*Workplace during the lockdown. Notes: Income deciles use (normal) personal work income pre-lockdown. Working population refers to individuals aged 15–64 that have worked in the reference week. Percentages are weighted for population size. Workplace in May 2020. Source: Author's own estimates, based on PNAD COVID-19.*

construction workers or street vendors cannot be fulfilled from there [1]. Saltiel [20], for example, found that work-from-home jobs are strong correlated with the educational levels of the workforce; therefore, vulnerable groups are more likely to suffer the negative economic impacts of the coronavirus as their jobs cannot be done from home.

**Figure 1** above examines this hypothesis with the data obtained from the Brazilian case during the month of May 2020.<sup>2</sup> For that, the individuals who have worked in the reference week are sorted according to their (personal) work earnings pre-lockdown and then divided into income deciles.

During the pandemic, 81.9 percent of employees—meaning those who had worked in the reference week—conducted this activity in the same workplace as in the time pre-coronavirus and only 13.5 percent were working from home. However, as predicted in the literature, the chances to work via home office differ greatly according to socioeconomic status. This share is 2.8 percent for the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution, and 40.7 percent for the highest income decile meanwhile.

Looking beyond employment functions can help us to understand this difference across income deciles. PNAD COVID-19 data show that employees with occupations requiring more extensive higher education qualifications were more often found to be working from home during the pandemic. Some 45.4 percent of teachers and 39.6 percent of lawyers, engineers, and journalists were doing home office, while these figures were close to 0 for domestic workers (0.0), doorkeeper (0.2) farmers (0.2), butchers and bakers (0.4).

#### **4. Work absenteeism**

**Figure 1** was limited to the individuals who continued to work during the pandemic. However, the coronavirus crisis has had also a strong impact on the employment status of workers. **Figure 2** reports the share of the employed

<sup>2</sup> **Figure 3** in Appendix reports the same results for the month of June 2020.

*COVID-19 Sends the Bill: Socially Disadvantaged Workers Suffer the Severest Losses… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102030*

#### **Figure 2.**

*Temporary work absenteeism due to lockdown. Notes: Income deciles using (normal) personal work income prelockdown. Employed population refers to individuals aged 15–64 who worked or were temporarily absent from their jobs in the reference week. Percentages are weighted for population size. Absenteeism related to the month of May 2020. Source: Author's own estimates, based on PNAD COVID-19.*

population who had a job before the lockdown measures but who are in May 2020 temporarily absent from it due to the lockdown policies.<sup>3</sup>

In May 2020, 18.8 percent of the employed population of Brazil—equivalent to 15.7 million workers—were temporarily absent from their job due to socialdistancing measures.<sup>4</sup> From this total, 56.9 percent continued to receive (at least one part of) their work earnings, while 43.1 percent had a complete loss of such income. **Figure 2** confirms that vulnerable workers have been hit hardest by the pandemic. The lower the work income, the higher the chance of having become detached from the labor market as a direct result of the lockdown. Informal workers have been especially affected by this trend because they have—independent of their income—a higher chance of being absent from their job, and are more likely to lose all their income in case of work leave. Some 65.5 percent of informal workers who were absent from their job due to the lockdown received no work income in May 2020, compared with a figure of 11.6 percent among the formally employed.

#### **5. Impact on income distribution**

To highlight the impact of this lockdown-related temporary work absenteeism on income levels, **Table 1** below reports the income distribution in Brazil both before and during the pandemic. Measured are (personal) work incomes for the economically active population aged 15–64, and in the third block (Columns 6 to 7) I add to the investigation the COVID-19 Emergency Aid provided by the Brazilian government to mitigate the economic impact of the lockdown measures.

As shown in the **Table 1**, lockdown increased income inequality within Brazilian society (Gini coefficient rose from 0.467 to 0.481) and reduced the average monthly (work) income of the population by 18 percent (from BRL 2320.18 to BRL 1888.13). It is worth mentioning that all social classes were affected by this income

<sup>3</sup> **Figure 4** in Appendix reports the same results for the month of June 2020.

<sup>4</sup> Two further studies show similarly striking results. Silva and Silva [21] found that 18.6 percent of the employed population in Brazil were temporarily absent from their job in Mai 2020 due to the lockdown. Lameiras and Cavalcanti [22] reported a deep fall in this value over time. From 18.7 percent in Mai to 14.2 percent in June and 8.4 percent in July.


*Notes: Calculation using personal income of the economically active population aged 15–64. No lockdown refers to work income before the pandemic. With Lockdown denotes the work income in May 2020. Lockdown with COVID-19 Aid adds to the work income of May 2020 the emergency support of BRL 600 per person paid by the Brazilian government. Values are in BRL, and weighted for population size. Source: Author's own estimates, based on PNAD COVID-19.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Atleast Income distribution before and during lockdown.*

reduction. However, in relative terms, it is the bottom decile who have suffered the greatest losses. The average income of this group—which was BRL 389.07 in the period pre-lockdown—decreased to 0 in May 2020; in other words, around 8.5 million people have lost their entire work income during the course of the pandemic.

PNAD COVID-19 reports that 68 million Brazilian households (38.7 percent) have benefited from COVID-19 Emergency Aid. Therefore, as shown in **Table 1**, this financial support has helped to mitigate the economic losses induced by lockdown and has made all the income deciles better off than they would otherwise be.

These findings are in line with the conclusions of other studies. Carvalho [23] and Duque [24] confirmed the effectiveness of the COVID-19 Emergency Aid in reducing poverty and neutralizing, at least in part, the income losses caused by the crisis. Pires et al. [25] emphasized the positive impact of the COVID-19 Aid on income inequality, measured by the Gini coefficient. While the lockdown's initial impact generated an increase of 5 percent in the income inequality, the implementation of the emergency cash transfer was responsible for the reduction of the income distribution to a level lower than the pre-pandemic period.

Despite this positive impact of the COVID-19 Emergency Aid, **Table 1** shows that these gains were not evenly distributed the Brazilian society. The deciles in the center of the income distribution (fourth, fifth, and sixth) enjoyed the greatest

<sup>4</sup> Two further studies show similarly striking results. Silva and Silva [21] found that 18.6 percent of the employed population in Brazil were temporarily absent from their job in Mai 2020 due to the lockdown. Lameiras and Cavalcanti [22] reported a deep fall in this value over time. From 18.7 percent in Mai to 14.2 percent in June and 8.4 percent in July.

*COVID-19 Sends the Bill: Socially Disadvantaged Workers Suffer the Severest Losses… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102030*

benefit in relative terms: the (average) income including also the emergency aid of the fourth decile, for example, was only 0.9 percent lower than the value precoronavirus. The second income decile has experienced the highest percentage loss of income meanwhile: between earnings and COVID-19 emergency aid, this group had an average income of BRL 744.20 in May 2020, which is 15.2 percent lower than the equivalent figure pre-pandemic (BRL 878.07).

### **6. Conclusion**

Using data from a recently published (national) representative phone survey, this chapter has calculated the impact of the COVID-19-related lockdown policies on employment status and income levels in Brazil. Linking the socioeconomic variables of 349,306 individuals across 193,662 households before and during the imposed social-distancing measures (May and June 2020), this manuscript found that home office is a significant option only for the more advantaged sections of society. For the bottom deciles vis-à-vis income distribution, the chance to work from home remains a distant dream.

With the pandemic, 18.8 percent of the employed population in Brazil (around 15.7 million workers) have been temporarily absent from their professional activities and 56.6 percent of them have completely lost their work income. This reduction in employment has generated a fall of 18 percent in the average work income, with more significant losses for the poorest sectors of the population: the average work income of the lowest income decile decreased from BRL 389.07 to 0 and for the second decile the reduction has been 70.2 percent (from BRL 878.08 to BRL 262.06). Informal workers have been doubly economically burdened during the pandemic, since they have a greater probability of being absent from their job, and —if out of work—they are more likely to completely lose their work income.

In addition, this chapter has addressed the importance of state interventions to mitigate the negative impact of social-distancing measures on the socioeconomic environment of the domestic population. The COVID-19 Emergency Aid implemented by the Brazilian (federal) government has compensated—at least in part—for the income losses due to the enforced lockdown policies, increasing the average income from BRL 1888.13 to BRL 2121.55. However, this value is still 7.8 percent lower than the average work income amount pre-coronavirus.

#### **Conflict of interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Abbreviations**

