Understanding the Impact of the Crisis in Bulgaria: Preliminary Results from the Crisis Monitoring Survey OSI/World Bank May 13 th, 2010

Context Macroeconomic impact of crisis hit Bulgaria primarily in 2009  Impact of the Crisis: GDP declined 5% in 2009  Microeconomic impacts tend to lag Open Society Institute Sofia and the World Bank collaborated to assess the impact of the crisis on households Survey conducted in February/March 2010 Nationally representative survey of 2400 households An additional 300 households were surveyed in primarily Roma settlements

Tools for Monitoring the Social Impacts of the Crisis Micro-simulations of household poverty Monitoring of administrative data (social benefits, labor markets) Regularly conducted survey data Rapid qualitative assessments Crisis monitoring survey Household surveys on transmission channels of the crisis (i.e. labor markets), impacts, and coping methods

Crisis Monitoring Surveys around the Region Governments and donors cooperated to conduct Crisis Monitoring Surveys in a number of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Stand-alone surveys have been conducted in Turkey, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia Crisis monitoring modules have been added to Household Budget or Labor Force Surveys in Croatia, Serbia, Latvia, and Armenia

Why use Crisis Response Surveys? To understand transmission channels of the crisis in detail To observe the household’s coping strategy and access to informal safety nets To determine whether formal safety nets are mitigating the impact of the crisis To measure the impact on household welfare and human development outcomes

Household income shocks are primarily from the labor market

Pensioner households were the least likely to report a decline in income 32% of households reported a decline income Most pensioners live in household with workers

Workers are affected through multiple labor market channels Job loss is significant Reduction in work and salary were key drivers of the labor market transmission channel

Salary reductions are concentrated in the private (informal) sector

Labor market shocks were concentrated in construction and manufacturing

The most significant impacts are concentrated among the most vulnerable Education Level (Job loss concentrated among the least educated)

…and distributed unevenly across ethnic groups

Why use Crisis Response Surveys? To understand transmission channels of the crisis in detail To observe the household’s coping strategy and access to informal safety nets To determine whether formal safety nets are mitigating the impact of the crisis To measure the impact on household welfare and human development outcomes

Poor households were unable to respond to a decline in income by increasing labor supply Many households try to cope by increasing work Primarily wealthy households were able to find additional work

Informal Safety Nets: Transfers 6.7% of households sought but did not receive (additional) informal support Approximately 20% of households in Bulgaria relied on some form of informal transfers (14% of households received remittances from abroad) Few households reported an increase or decrease in informal transfers as the result of the crisis

Why use Crisis Response Surveys? To understand transmission channels of the crisis in detail To observe the household’s coping strategy and access to informal safety nets To determine whether formal safety nets are mitigating the impact of the crisis To measure the impact on household welfare and human development outcomes

Social assistance responded to the crisis

Why use Crisis Response Surveys? To understand transmission channels of the crisis in detail To observe the household’s coping strategy and access to informal safety nets To determine whether formal safety nets are mitigating the impact of the crisis To measure the impact on household welfare and human development outcomes

Poor households reported reducing essential expenditures due to economic hardship

Households reduce investments in health during a crisis

Households are reducing expenditures in ways that increase vulnerability to further shocks

Perceptions of the labor market remain grim

Next Steps Final report on the first wave of the Crisis Monitoring Survey Second round of data will be collected in September 2010—with updated results in November 2010 Third wave of data will be collected in February 2011 Final analysis and report in May 2011