Unhealthy Shock: Changes in Household Expenditures in the First Wave of COVID-19 in India

Abstract

This article uses nationally representative household survey data between June 2019 and 2020 from India to examine changes in household consumption expenditure following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that across rural and urban households, there was a strong reduction in overall expenditures, in particular, related to food and health. This corroborates findings from existing literature on food insecurity during the first lockdown in India (March–April 2020) and provides the first set of estimates on changes in health expenditure for this period. Although there were expansions to health insurance and subsidized COVID-related healthcare costs in India, our findings likely do not reflect this. We discuss implications for policy and outline future work.