Deepening multidimensional poverty: The impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable social groups

In Indonesia, and globally, there is increasing evidence that COVID-19 is having varying negative impacts on different social groups. Those already experiencing poverty are less able to take necessary measures to protect themselves, while vulnerable groups are in danger of being plunged further into poverty. Most notably, there are indications of deleterious impacts on women, particularly in regard to domestic and intimate partner violence, and time burdens. In assessing and projecting the impacts of COVID-19, in developing immediate responses, and in identifying longer-term policy directions, it is important to adopt a multidimensional definition of poverty and to ensure analyses are sensitive to gender and to those groups experiencing deepest deprivation prior to the pandemic. This chapter provides an overview of the implications of COVID-19 for people living in poverty. We draw on data from a 2018 study on multidimensional poverty in South Sulawesi, which used the Individual Measure of Multidimensional Poverty (IMMP) to demonstrate the value of measuring multidimensional poverty at the individual— rather than the household—level, and to identify the social groups that were experiencing multidimensional poverty prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those findings now have important implications for projecting how COVID-19 is likely to affect different social groups, and for COVID-19 responses.