Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Vulnerable Lebanese and Palestinian refugee adolescents in crisis-stricken Lebanon, amid a global pandemic, face the most enormous challenges to their education. With increasing socioeconomic vulnerabilities and shrinking opportunities, and the ever more fragile education sector, adolescents’ education is increasingly at risk. In 2021, an estimated 260,000 Lebanese children and 440,000 refugee children dropped out of school. This report focuses on Palestinian and Lebanese adolescents’ access to education and learning, and their opportunities to exercise voice and agency, highlighting the impact of the Lebanese crisis on their lives. It draws on findings from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal study, involving adolescents from Syrian and Palestinian refugee communities and vulnerable Lebanese host communities. Using interactive participatory tools, including participatory photography, GAGE aims to gain a better understanding of ‘what works’ to empower different groups of adolescents (especially girls) in conflict-affected contexts.

The COVID‑19 crisis exacerbated the numerous labour market challenges generally faced by young people. Between 2019 and 2020, those aged between 15 and 24 years experienced a much higher percentage loss in employment than adults (defined as those aged 25 years and above). Many of them dropped out of the labour force, or failed to enter it altogether, owing to the enormous difficulty of searching for and securing a job at a time when lockdowns and confinement measures were being imposed by many governments and employers suffered massive losses in revenue as a result of business closures. Moreover, steep drops in family income and the switch to distance learning by educational institutions rendered the pursuit of education and training more arduous for many. Consequently, the already high number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) rose even further in 2020.

There are many solutions to the problem of unemployment in Iraq for an important and main reason which is that Iraq is a rich country and its economy is solid Men who have pledged to God and themselves to serve this country in addition to the programmed economy The developed must have positive results, so mastermind and money must be used available to serve the people of this country that has suffered all kinds of grievance, injustice, injustice and hunger and humiliation, and now the ,new era of freedom has come. Iraq’s economic outlook is mired by significant downside risks that call for the accelerated implementation of structural reforms. These include: a potential decline in the oil price, a worsening COVID-19 crisis due to the spread of new variants, potential deterioration in security conditions, the intensification of climate change shocks, and additional macroeconomic volatility. Averting or mitigating the impact of these risks depends on the policies of the future government and commitment to comprehensive reforms in line with those envisioned in the Government of Iraq’s (GOI) White Paper, the government’s reform program.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated worldwide economic decline, East and Southern Africa (ESA) has suffered job losses and an increase in poverty, interruptions in healthcare services, and declined nutrition levels. Young adults whose place in the labor market is often informal, temporary, and tenuous at best have suffered greater job and income losses than their parents. As part of ensuring that recovery efforts also reduce the number of youth, especially young women, not in employment, education, or training (NEET), UN Women in ESA commissioned a quantitative study on the NEET status of youth aged 15-24 years in nine countries in the region. This report summarizes the country findings and provides a detailed analysis of available NEET data for youth aged 15-24 years with a view to supporting evidence-based policy advocacy and action in this area. The study covers Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda.

The main purpose of the paper is to consider the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the situation of youth in chosen countries of the European Union in the years 2009–2021. The study area includes four countries: Poland, Germany, Spain and France. The structure of the paper is following. At first, the concepts of precarity and labour market theories are presented. Then the statistical analysis of the situation of young people in Polish, German, Spanish and French labour markets is conducted to assess the economic position of youth in the labour market in the aspect of unemployment and to scrutinise temporary and precarious employment among youth. The principal research interest includes the impact of the pandemic on the situation of youth in the labour market.

Governments introduced protective public health measures, including lockdowns and social distancing, in response to the unprecedented global crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. For young people, such measures are particularly painful, as they entail an interruption of their transitions to adulthood, which generally require taking up their position in the public space and emerging as a recognised social peer, either through leaving the parental home, initiating an intimate relationship or getting a full-time job. In Portugal, where such transitions are often postponed, and young people cohabit with parents for much longer, lockdown meant withdrawal from the public space and living in an intensive family collective. This brought many challenges and created tension. Based on the results of a non-representative online survey on the impacts of the pandemic in Portugal, this article focuses how young people aged 16–24 adapted to the 2020 lockdown, using the conceptual lens of familialism. The results show that familialism remains a key support system in adversity, evidencing intergenerational solidarity through everyday practices of resilience and (self-) care, renewing and remaking social bonds. Individual distancing practices are deployed backstage, however, mitigating and nuancing the overwhelming hold of familialism.

This study examines changes in labor supply, income, and time allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico. Using an event-study design, it shows that the COVID-19 recession had severe negative consequences for Mexican households. In the first month of the pandemic, employment declined by 17 percentage points. Men recovered their employment faster than women, where men’s employment approaches original levels by 2021Q2. Women, on the other hand, experienced persistent employment losses. Within-household, men also increased their time spent on household chores while neither gender (persistently) increased their time caring for others. Instead, children reduced their time spent on schoolwork by 25%.

Understanding the aspirations and goals of the youth is essential to developing effective employment policies. Policies should be designed to allow educational and professional aspirations of young people to align with pathways to achieving them. The data collected is nationally representative and age distribution is similar across countries. Recent surveys on youth or sub-populations of youth have included questions to capture career aspirations and life goals in the time of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. Incorporating the youth aspirations and employment module for High Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) into multitopic household surveys has several advantages. In conclusion, measuring youth aspirations helps shed light on the possible employment outcomes that can be observed in adulthood and play a role in breaking poverty circles, which is highly relevant for public policy.

This paper captures and synthesizes key approaches, strategies and lessons for empowering rural youth in the Asia-Pacific region from farmers’ organizations (FOs) and regional and international development agencies. The paper dives deep into the initiatives and strategies employed in the region and beyond that empower rural communities, especially rural youth. It presents a synthesis of what has worked well in the field, strategies and approaches employed by FOs and development agencies, and methods for leveraging the comparative advantage of FOs in offering sustainable rural livelihoods for youth. It also highlights the efforts by FOs to address the challenges rural youth face in terms of productivity and socio-economic factors.

This research analyses the distribution and the flows between different types of employment (self-employment, temporary, and permanent), unemployment, education, and other types of inactivity, with particular focus on the duration of the school-to-work transition (STWT). The aim is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy on the careers of individuals aged 15-34.

During the past year, COVID-19 has necessitated numerous lockdowns, including the closure of schools, causing children and young people to spend more time in their homes. For some children, whose family members smoke, more time at home has meant increased SHS and THS exposure, whereas the school and after-school environment are smoke-free. In addition, parents or other family members might be home working, and so where they would usually smoke away from their home, for example when they go to their workplace, they are now smoking at home. This study aimed to ascertain the changing habits of smoking or ex-smoking parents of children and young people with severe respiratory disease, identified from a tertiary paediatric respiratory clinic during the pandemic. 50 parents have been given an 11-point questionnaire (panel) to respond to over the telephone (January–February, 2021).

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic and posed serious challenges in many countries. A number of studies before the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that the primary caregivers of the ED (Eating disorders) patients are subjected to great burden, psychological pressure, and serious emotional problems. This study aimed to investigate the psychological distress level of the primary caregivers of ED offspring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strengthening the digital literacy of its youth populations has been a key challenge for ASEAN countries. Digital literacy refers to a person’s ability to use digital platforms for finding, consuming, evaluating, creating and communicating digital content. In an increasingly digitalized world, young people’s success often depends on such skills as it determines their capability to participate in a modern labour force and make well-informed decisions on matters that affect their lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of ASEAN societies and further highlighted the importance of digital literacy . The educational, private and work life of young people has changed dramatically with the rise of online learning and remote working. Investing in the digital skills of young girls and boys will help them adapt to this new situation, acquire new skills and knowledge, increase their ability to connect with different people and communities and express their voices, contribute to the success of ASEAN businesses in increasingly competitive global markets and help ASEAN nations to achieve their social development goals through its empowering effect on young people.

This study aims to assess the anxiety and depressive symptoms related to the COVID‐19 pandemic in children with chronic lung disease and their parents and also to evaluate parents' coping strategies. Parents of children aged 4–18 years, with chronic lung disease and healthy control were enrolled in the study. General Health Questionnaire‐12, specific COVID‐19 related anxiety questions, The Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced inventory, coronavirus‐related psychiatric symptom scale in children–parental form were used to analyze the psychiatric effects of COVID‐19. Parents were also asked about how online education affected their family life and children. All data were compared between children/parents in the study and control groups. Risk factors related with anxiety scores of children were also analyzed.