Economic vulnerability among the low-income during the COVID-19 pandemic : Evidence from the Japanese household panel data analysis
- This paper investigates the household characteristics which are related to economic vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Households with self-employed or non-regular employee household heads, and households with low income have high risk of experiencing a fall in the living standard.
- Also among the elderly, the main reason of fall in the living standard is losing jobs.
- Savings are effective to prevent from a fall in the living standard among the elderly, but this is not the case for the working-age population.
- The characteristics of people who experienced a fall in the living standard during the COVID-19 pandemic and those who applied the public supports are the same, except for housing tenure. This indicates that people who are vulnerable under the pandemics tend to apply the public support, but it dose not means that the supports are sufficient and easy to access.
- Among the non-elderly low-income population, the application rates of social insurance contribution exemption or financial assistance of tuition fees are more than 10% respectively, but on the other hand, the application rate of Housing security benefit is only about 1% which is lower than Public Assistance.
