Does government or private support matter during crises? Panel data evidence from household response during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions

Social protection policies are critical public policy measures to reduce livelihood vulnerability and enhance resilience amidst shocks. In this study, we exploit nationally representative panel data from Nigeria, the National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS) on COVID-19, to assess the heterogeneous impact of different sources of support on households’ response to lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. We employed a Correlated random effect (CRE) model with cluster-robust standard errors for binary outcomes to examine the impacts of government support, remittance and private rental income on the probability of stopping work following the lockdown restrictions across different employment sectors - agricultural, informal and formal. We find mixed results across the three support sources and employment categories. Chiefly, government support and private rental income are positively associated with the probability of stopping work in the agricultural sector. However, these effects are negative and significant if working in the informal sector. Remittance appears not to play a significant role if working in the informal and formal sectors but has a significant negative association among households working in the agricultural sector. We also found heterogeneous effects of these sources of support depending on whether the households are in rural or urban areas. Our findings have important implications for social protection policies that target building resilience amidst shocks and risks to household livelihoods.