The COVID‑19 pandemic delivered an unprecedented shock to the global economy. 

The impact on consumers is central to the prospects for recovery as the pandemic recedes, as it eventually will. Understanding how the pandemic has affected consumer demand, the engine of the global economy, and what that means for the recovery is the focus of this research effort. This report is part of a series by the McKinsey Global Institute on 

the postpandemic economy that includes The future of work after COVID‑19 and Will productivity and growth return after the COVID‑19 crisis? It builds on McKinsey and MGI’s long history of consumer surveys and published reports such as Understanding Chinese consumers: Growth engine of the world and Urban World: The global consumers to watch.

The research effort for this report was led by Jaana Remes, an MGI partner based in San Francisco, together with Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, an MGI visiting senior fellow based in London; James Manyika, co-chair of MGI based in San Francisco; Sven Smit, co-chair of MGI based in Amsterdam; Sajal Kohli, a McKinsey senior partner based in Chicago with expertise in retail and consumer markets; and Victor Fabius, a McKinsey partner based in Paris. The project team was led by Anton Nakaliuzhnyi and consisted of Sydney Bub, Maciej Latocha, and Henry Pollock. Eduardo Doryan, Ezra Greenberg, and Soyoko Umeno provided guidance, modeling, analytics, and data support, for which we are very grateful. 

We would like to thank our academic advisers, who challenged our thinking and provided valuable guidance, in particular Martin N. Baily, Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development and senior fellow, economic studies, Center on Regulation and Markets at 

the Brookings Institution; and Alan M. Taylor, a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of California, Davis and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

A number of individuals generously contributed their time, insight, and expertise. In particular, we would like to thank Wolfgang Fengler from the World Bank, Homi Kharas and the team from World Data Lab, and Vincent Horovitz, Jonah Green, and their colleagues from Equifax. 

We would also like to thank current and former McKinsey and MGI colleagues who provided valuable insights and expertise, including: Tera Allas, Bill Aull, Reinhold Barchet, Oleg Bestsennyy, Stefan Biesdorf, Urs Binggeli, Eric Bochtler, Marc Brodherson, 

Lidiya Chapple, Tamara Charm, Becca Coggins, Jeffrey Condon, Jenny Cordina, 

Emma Dorn, Jennifer Fowkes, Caitlin Fross, Guenter Fuchs, Jose Pablo Garcia, Amit Garg, Greg Gilbert, Andrew Goodman, Anne Grimmelt, Alex Harris, Sarah Holcomb, Xin Huang, Erik Johnson, Wojciech Kazanecki, Tim Koller, Simona Kulakauskaite, Jon Law, Megan Lesko Pacchia, Eric Levin, Thomas London, Ryan Luby, Susan Lund, Tomasz Mataczyński, Varun Mathur, Jan Mischke, Charlie Mitchell, Jessica Moulton, Sofia Moulvad Veranen, Brian O’Neil, Felix Poh, Dorian Pyle, Robin Riedel, Kelsey Robinson, Olivia Robinson, Erik Rong, Ted Roundesville, Kevin Russell, Jason Rico Saavedra, Jimmy Sarakatsannis, Jeongmin Seong, Daniel Soto, Tilman Tacke, Shreya Thacker, Upasana Unni,