Effects of Economic Shocks on Transitions in Food Insecurity during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mexico
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25097/rep.n41.2025.08Keywords:
Economic shocks, food insecurity, governmental support, income changes, longitudinal survey, COVID-19, Mexico, pandemicAbstract
This study examines how economic shocks affected food insecurity between 2020-2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using ENCOVID-19 Longitudinal database, changes in food insecurity within households from 2020 to 2021 were analyzed. The effects of economic shocks on food insecurity were assessed, including job loss, income reduction, catastrophic health expenditures, and indebtedness. The results indicate that job loss and income reduction increased the likelihood of worsening food insecurity by 10 % - 19 %. Catastrophic health expenditures had a smaller effect, while indebtedness in 2021 raised the odds of worsening food insecurity by 12 % - 23 %. It was confirmed that multiple economic shocks raise the probability of exacerbating food insecurity. These findings underscore the need to address socioeconomic impacts to alleviate food insecurity during the pandemic.
Downloads
References
AMAI. (2018). Nivel Socioeconómico AMAI. Nota Metodológica. Asociación Mexicana de Agencias de Inteligencia de Mercado y Opinión. https://amai.org/descargas/Nota-Metodolo%CC%81gico-NSE-2018-v3.pdf
Arceo-Gomez, E. O., Campos-Vazquez, R. M., Esquivel, G., Alcaraz, E., Martínez, L. A., y López, N. G. (2022). The income gradient in COVID-19 mortality and hospitalisation: An observational study with social security administrative records in Mexico. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, 6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2021.100115
Arel-Bundock, V. (2022). marginaleffects: Marginal Effects, Marginal Means, Predictions, and Contrasts. easystats, CRAN: R package.
Béné, C., Bakker, D., Chavarro, M. J., Even, B., Melo, J., y Sonneveld, A. (2021). Global assessment of the impacts of COVID-19 on food security. Global Food Security, 31, 100575. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100575
Bundervoet, T., Dávalos, M. E., y Garcia, N. (2022). The short-term impacts of COVID-19 on households in developing countries: An overview based on a harmonized dataset of high-frequency surveys. World Development, 153, 105844. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105844
Cejudo, G. M., Gómez-Álvarez, D., Michel, C. L., Lugo, D., Trujillo, H., Pimienta, C., y Campos, J. (2020). Federalismo en COVID: ¿Cómo responden los gobiernos estatales a la pandemia? Laboratorio Nacional de Políticas Públicas. https://lnppmicrositio.shinyapps.io/FederalismoEnCovid/
CONEVAL. (2021). CONEVAL presenta las estimaciones de pobreza multidimensional 2018 y 2020. Consejo Nacional de Evaluación.
Egger, D., Miguel, E., Warren, S. S., Shenoy, A., Collins, E., Karlan, D., Parkerson, D., Mobarak, A. M., Fink, G., Udry, C., Walker, M., Haushofer, J., Larreboure, M., Athey, S., Lopez-Pena, P., Benhachmi, S., Humphreys, M., Lowe, L., Meriggi, N. F., … Vernot, C. (2021). Falling living standards during the COVID-19 crisis: Quantitative evidence from nine developing countries. Science Advances, 7(6), eabe0997. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abe0997
Esquivel, G. (2020). Los impactos económicos de la pandemia en México. Economía UNAM, 17(51), Article 51. https://doi.org/10.22201/fe.24488143e.2020.51.543
FAO. (2012). Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria (ELCSA). Manual de uso y aplicación. FAO. https://www.fao.org/4/i3065s/i3065s.pdf
FAO. (2021). The State of Food and Agriculture 2021. Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses. FAO. https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/125b023c-002f-4387-9150-dc7fbbd86cbc/content
FAO, FIDA, OPS, WFP, y UNICEF. (2021). América Latina y el Caribe - Panorama regional de la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional 2021: Estadísticas y tendencias. FAO, FIDA, OPS, WFP y UNICEF. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb7497es
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, y WHO. (2019). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns. FAO. https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/16480532-17e9-4b61-b388-1d6d86414470/content
Fuchs, M. (2012) Nonresponse and panel attrition in a mobile phone panel survey. Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology Research Conference in Washington, DC, USA. (Vol. 174)
Gaitán-Rossi, P., Vilar-Compte, M., Teruel, G., y Pérez-Escamilla, R. (2021). Food insecurity measurement and prevalence estimates during the COVID-19 pandemic in a repeated cross-sectional survey in Mexico. Public Health Nutrition, 24(3), 412–421. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980020004000
Gentilini, U. (Ed.). (2022). Social Protection, Food Security and Nutrition: An Update of Concepts, Evidence and Select Practices in South Asia and Beyond. World Bank Group. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38210
INEGI. (2020). Resultados de la encuesta nacional de ocupación y empleo. Cifras oportunas de septiembre de 2020. Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática.
Lozano-Hidalgo, E., Fernández, M. H., Gaitán-Rossi, P., y Vilar-Compte, M. (2022). Aproximación al consumo de alimentos recomendables y no recomendables en la primera ola de la pandemia por Covid-19 en México. Salud Pública de México, 64(4), Article 4, jul-ago. https://doi.org/10.21149/13342
Lustig, N., Martínez Pabon, V., Sanz, F., y Younger, S. D. (2020). The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns and Expanded Social Assistance on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Red de Desarrollo Social de América Latina y el Caribe (ReDeSoc). Center for Global Development. https://dds.cepal.org/redesoc/publicacion?id=5368
Pepetone, A., Frongillo, E. A., Dodd, K. W., Wallace, M. P., Hammond, D., y Kirkpatrick, S. I. (2023). Prevalence and Severity of Food Insecurity Before and During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Among Adults and Youth in Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Journal of Nutrition, 153(4), 1231–1243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2022.12.031
Pérez Hernández, V. H., Teruel Belismelis, G., Hernandez-Solano, A., Triano Enríquez, M., Gaitan-Rossi, P., Vilar-Compte, M., y López Escobar, E. (2021). Encuesta Nacional sobre los Efectos del COVID-19 en el Bienestar de los Hogares Mexicanos (ENCOVID-19-MAYO). EQUIDE. México.
Pérez-Escamilla, R., Cunningham, K., y Moran, V. H. (2020a). COVID-19 and maternal and child food and nutrition insecurity: A complex syndemic. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13036
Pérez-Escamilla, R., Vilar-Compte, M., y Gaitan-Rossi, P. (2020b). Why identifying households by degree of food insecurity matters for policymaking. Global Food Security, 26, 100459. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2020.100459
Picchioni, F., Goulao, L. F., y Roberfroid, D. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 on diet quality, food security and nutrition in low and middle income countries: A systematic review of the evidence. Clinical Nutrition, 41(12), 2955–2964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2021.08.015
Shamah-Levy, T., Romero-Martínez, M., Barrientos-Gutierrez, T., Cuevas-Nasu, L., Bautista-Arredondo, S. A., Colchero, M. A., Gaona-Pineda, E., Lazcano-Ponce, E., Martínez-Barnetche, J., Alpuche-Arana, C., y Rivera-Dommarco, J. A. (2021). Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición 2020 sobre Covid-19. Resultados nacionales. Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública.
Shamah-Levy, T., Romero-Martínez, M., Barrientos-Gutierrez, T., Cuevas-Nasu, L., Bautista-Arredondo, S. A., Colchero, M. A., Gaona-Pineda, E., Lazcano-Pone, E., Martínez-Barnetche, J., Alpuche-Arana, C., y Rivera-Dommarco, J. A. (2022). Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición 2021 sobre Covid-19. Resultados nacionales. Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública.
Teruel Belismelis, G., y Pérez Hernández, V. H. (2021). Studying well-being during the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Encovid-19 survey. Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 83(n.spe), 125–167. https://doi.org/10.22201/iis.01882503p.2021.0.60071
The World Bank. (2020). Joint Statement on COVID-19 Impacts on Food Security and Nutrition. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2020/04/21/joint-statement-on-covid-19-impacts-on-food-security-and-nutrition
The World Bank. (2022). Crecimiento del PIB (% anual)—México. Global indicators. https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=MX
Vilar-Compte, M., Pérez, V., Teruel, G., Alonso, A., y Pérez-Escamilla, R. (2020). Costing of actions to safeguard vulnerable Mexican households with young children from the consequences of COVID-19 social distancing measures. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19(70). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01187-3
Vos, R., McDermott, J., y Swinnen, J. (2022). COVID-19 and Global Poverty and Food Security. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 14, 151–168. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-111920-013613
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Economy and Politics Journal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Journal declines any responsibility for possible conflicts derived from the authorship of the works that are published in it.
The University of Cuenca in Ecuador conserves the patrimonial rights (copyright) of the published works and will favor the reuse of the same ones, these can be: copy, use, diffuse, transmit and expose publicly.
Unless otherwise indicated, all contents of the electronic edition are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.



