COVID-19 Impact on Marginalised Roma Households

COVID-19 pandemic has a devastating effect on both lives and livelihoods. In this paper, we estimate the effect of market disruptions due to COVID-19 on the lives of marginalised Roma households in 10 EU Member States utilizing panel data from phone surveys that were implemented as part of a randomised cash transfer experiment. The household surveys began data collection in 2019 - several months before the pandemic - and have continued throughout it. The household survey included a consistent set of internationally accepted and validated questions on food security (the household dietary diversity score, the household hunger scale and the food consumption score). We find no adverse effects of the lockdowns on food security among the control group. As regards the margenalised Roma households, cash transfers improved dietary quality and quantity over the low levels observed at baseline.