Children and COVID-19 Research Library

In response to the unprecedented educational challenges created by school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 90 per cent of countries have implemented some form of remote learning policy. This factsheet estimates the potential reach of digital and broadcast remote learning responses, finding that at least 463 million students around the globe remain cut off from education, mainly due to a lack of remote learning policies or lack of equipment needed for learning at home. This data primarily stems from the UNESCO-UNICEF-World Bank Survey on National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures (June-July 2020), as well as household microdata from sources like Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

Survey on the situation of families with children and adolescents during COVID 19 in Panama, specifically in terms of economics, food, distance education, access to health services and family conflicts. Telephone household survey conducted on a sample of 1000 families representative of the national population conducted from 26 May to 9 June 2020.

As families' incomes plummet, millions more children go hungry and are forced to work and beg. Millions of parents and caregivers have lost incomes and jobs due to COVID-19, forcing them to expose their children to harmful and dangerous circumstances, such as begging or child marriage. World Vision has conducted rapid assessments in 24 countries across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia confirming alarming predictions of increased child hunger, violence, and poverty due to the economic impact of COVID-19. These assessment results give further evidence that the most vulnerable families and their children are hardest hit in such crises. Those living in fragile countries already suffering from conflict, climate change, instability or displacement as well as those already receiving humanitarian assistance are suffering even greater injustices because of the pandemic.

The pandemic caused by the global spread of the coronavirus Covid-19 is harming social, educational and health well-being of children, with the most vulnerable being hit the hardest. Children are being impacted directly, through school, extra-curricular and childcare facilities closures, social distancing and confinement, which puts a heavy burden on their educational, cognitive and emotional development, with the risk of increasing their anxiety and stress levels. Children are also being impacted indirectly, through the reduction of household incomes, which reduces their material and social well-being, impairs access to social and healthcare, while also exposing the hardest hit to risks malnutrition. It is critical to understand that the negative impact of the Covid-19 crisis may be particularly strong for some groups of children including those living in poverty, children with disabilities, children deprived of parental care, children in detention and so on. Furthermore, negative impacts of this scale may extend well beyond the short term spreading childhood poverty across many childhood years or beyond.

This report presents the main findings of a Save the Children child protection rapid survey. The survey finds that children are increasingly vulnerable and at risk - from an increase in violence and abuse, stress, poverty and hazardous coping strategies such as child labour and child marriage.

This policy brief focuses mainly on the pandemic’s impacts on the youth involved in entrepreneurial activities in agrifood systems (young agripreneurs).

Across several social, economic, and political dimensions, women and girls are disproportionately affected by the crisis simply because of their sex. The immediate effects of COVID-19 on gender inequality are already showing themselves in health and education, on the burden of unpaid care work and gender-based violence.
While the COVID-19 crisis affects everyone, women and girls face specific and often disproportionate economic, health, and social risks due to deeply entrenched inequalities, social norms, and unequal power relations. Understanding the gender-differentiated impacts of the COVID-19 crisis through sex-disaggregated data is fundamental to designing policy responses that reduce vulnerable conditions and strengthen women's agency, placing gender equality at their centre. This is not just about rectifying long-standing inequalities but also about building a more just and resilient world.

This research focuses on risks and mitigation strategies for 3 at-risk subpopulations of children: (1) children with behavioral health needs, (2) children in foster care or at risk for maltreatment, and (3) children with medical complexity (CMC). Mitigation strategies delineated for these at-risk populations are also likely beneficial for any child and family. Importantly, children not already in these groups are at risk for facing new medical, behavioral, or social challenges that develop during the pandemic. In particular, children in households of low socioeconomic status are likely at the highest risk for new or worsening issues, underscoring the critical leadership role of Medicaid programs in these risk mitigation strategies.

Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has already led to major increases in unemployment and is expected to lead to unprecedented increases in poverty and food and nutrition insecurity, as well as poor health outcomes. Families where young children, youth, pregnant and lactating women live need to be protected against the ongoing protracted pandemic and the aftershocks that are very likely to follow for years to come. The future wellbeing of the vast majority of the world now depends on reconfiguring the current ineffective food, nutrition, health, and social protection systems to ensure food and nutrition security for all. Because food, nutrition, health, and socio-economic outcomes are intimately inter-linked, it is essential that we find out how to effectively address the need to reconfigure and to provide better intersecoral coordination among global and local food, health care, and social protection systems taking equity and sutainability principles into account. Implementation science research informed by complex adaptive sytems frameworks will be needed to fill in the major knowledge gaps. Not doing so will not only put the development of individuals at further risk, but also negatively impact on the development potential of entire nations and ultimately our planet.

The lives and futures of children across South Asia are being torn apart by the Covid-19 crisis. While they may be less susceptible to the virus itself, children are being profoundly affected by the fallout, including the economic and social consequences of the lockdown and other measures taken to counter the pandemic. Decades of progress on children’s health, education and other priorities risk being wiped out. Yet the crisis has also presented opportunities to expose and tackle some of the longstanding challenges facing children in the region, especially those from the most vulnerable communities. With the pandemic expanding rapidly across a region that contains a quarter of the world’s population, UNICEF's Lives Upended report describes the disastrous immediate and longer-term consequences that the virus and the measures to curb it have had on 600 million children and the services they depend on.

Au Niger comme partout dans le monde le coronavirus a crée une psychose qui a conduit l’Etat Nigérien avec l’appui de ses partenaires Techniques et Financiers à prendre des mesures adéquates pour lutter contre la maladie. Ces mesures ont malheureusement perturbé le système économique et social chez la jeunesse.

This review drew on a mixture of academic papers, grey literature and media reports and blogs. Evidence on the impact of previous pandemics/crises on child labour in South Asia was limited, and hence the report looks at the Ebola epidemic in Africa and the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and global financial crisis of 2007/8. The literature details the pathways through which the current crisis could lead to increased child labour. However, precise data on impact on child labour is very limited, and does not disaggregate much by country, and even less by sector, gender or rural/urban location.

This study aims to examine the impact of the infection by the novel coronavirus on Brazilian children in situation of social vulnerability based on the Millennium Sustainable Development Goals. Reflective study based on discursive formulation in three aspects principles of the objectives and goals for the millennium sustainable development; impact of the pandemic on the health of children and their families living in social vulnerability; and the role of pediatric nursing in the care provided - limits and challenges.

While women were already doing most of the world’s unpaid care work prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging research suggests that the crisis and its subsequent shutdown response have resulted in a dramatic increase in this burden. This policy brief builds on recent work on the care economy to explore implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and opportunities for addressing the burden of unpaid care work.

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all parts of society and livelihoods around the globe. It is though worth recognizing that disadvantaged segments of populations like rural young women and men will be impacted harder, nevertheless, when proactively engaged, they have demonstrated to be innovators in their own sectors to surmount the pandemic impact. As governments and development partners take steps to address the economic and social effects of COVID-19, they should not allow a reversal of the rural youth progress achieved in recent years in terms of inclusion in food systems, access to education, vocational education and training, and access to decent employment. While in the immediate future the majority of global resources will be redirected toward the fight against the virus, rural young women and men, should remain a top priority both during and after the pandemic in order to support them to reach their full potential, allow them to prosper and also ensure a sustainable rural recovery. Furthermore, transforming food systems to be inclusive, sustainable, efficient, healthy and in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, should be connected in all COVID-19 recovery measures.