Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The dual challenges of the climate crisis and COVID-19 pandemic compound on each other and are disproportionately impacting children in East Asia and Pacific. This calls for ambitious climate actions that help advance climate justice for current and future generations of children and support a green and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As stated by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the pandemic recovery is “a profound opportunity” to steer the world on “a path that tackles climate change, protects the environment, reverses biodiversity loss and ensures the long-term health and security of humankind”. Unless inclusive climate-smart solutions are prioritized in the recovery phase, there is a high risk of emissions rebounding and governments locking themselves in to a carbon-intense future, leaping from the COVID-19 frying pan into the climate fire. This working paper provides an economic analysis of climate and COVID-19 recovery policy measures in East Asia and the Pacific region and makes an investment case for accelerating ambitious and inclusive climate actions through national climate policies and COVID-19 recovery measures in East Asia and the Pacific and beyond.

Although COVID-19 has given an opportunity to the earth to restore her ecosystem, its role in bringing changes in every sector including social, economic, agricultural, industrial, education and health is enormous. The study was conducted to assess the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 in Bangladesh by collecting data from different sources. The result depicted that during the first wave of COVID-19, the detection rate was less than 5%, exceeding almost 30% after detecting the deadlier Indian variant where 65% of the death is noticed by the people older than 50 years. Among all the frontline service providers during Covid, the highest rate of death was observed for doctors in Bangladesh. This study also discussed the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and found that women faced more depression and anxiety than men as well as 43% of children had subthreshold mental disturbances. Three-fourths of the adolescents have been distressed with household stress during the pandemic. Women and girls have encountered increased domestic violence whereas early marriages dropped out many rural girls from education. Decreasing remittance from non-residents and shutting down of RMG industry resulted loss of job and have badly affected economic section. Almost 20 million workers lost their jobs in Bangladesh from the informal sector. Moreover, the healthcare workers who have treated the corona virus patients have been socially stigmatized due to the fear of infection. Corona Virus has jeopardized the agriculture sector and 66 % farmers (53% crop and vegetables, 99% fish farmers) got lower price than they used to get in a normal situation.

The aftershocks of COVID-19 threaten to undo decades of development gains across the Pacific region. World Vision surveyed 752 households in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu between July and December 2020 to gather first-hand accounts of the impacts of COVID-19 and its aftershocks on communities, families and their children. The findings highlight the human cost of the severe economic recession that has befallen the broader Pacific region since the pandemic, laying bare the region’s vulnerability to future shocks, stresses, and uncertainties.

How COVID-19's impact on hunger and education is forcing children into marriage. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, most experts estimated child marriage would continue for many more decades. Because the pandemic has increased poverty levels and hunger, and decreased access to education, the risk of girls becoming child brides is also increasing. This report pairs data from World Vision’s Youth Healthy Behaviour Survey with global literature to better understand the conditions which enable child marriage and how these conditions may be changing because of the global pandemic. The report analyzes 14,964 observations from children and youth aged 12 to 18 from World Vision programming sites in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, and Zimbabwe. Case studies also provide insights into the lives of girls within these communities.

In 2019, Oxfam warned that West Africa’s governments were the least committed to reducing inequality on the continent, despite crisis levels of inequality.2 In 2021, using the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index (CRII) framework devised by Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI), we have found that the average West African citizen still lives under a government least committed to fighting inequality in Africa. The CRI considers public spending; progressive taxation; protection of workers; policies to support agriculture and land rights; and approaches to debt distress; and the role of international financial institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank While West African governments’ indifference towards inequality would be a tragedy at any time, it is more so during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is worsening inequality. On the face of it, West Africa has fared relatively well through the pandemic so far. While infections have been lower than elsewhere, it is increasingly becoming clear that the pandemic risks becoming the region’s worst economic crisis in decades, pushing millions into poverty. No end is in sight due to the obscene global vaccine inequality, which means that less than 4% of West Africans have so far been fully vaccinated.

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, employment declined and real incomes fell worldwide. The burden of childcare on families increased and, in many countries, women’s employment fell more than men’s. From a couple-level perspective, changing employment patterns could lead to a retraditionalisation of gender roles between partners, especially for families with dependent children. This study focused on couples with children under 16 and used quarterly large-scale micro data (the Italian Labour Force Survey) to examine, through descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regressions, the changes and composition of couples’ work patterns between 2019 and 2020.

Using unique data from an economically and racially diverse sample of 448 caregivers with young children (ages 4–9 years) in Ohio, this study assesses multiple sources of family social and economic disruptions and their associations with parenting activities during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order. Caregivers reported extensive social and economic challenges during this time, while also increasing (on average) their time spent in play/learning activities. Time spent in discipline was less likely to increase during this period.

Families are navigating an unstable economy due to COVID-19. Financial stressors have the potential to strain intimate relationships and exacerbate prior inequities across lower-income families. Notably, the economic impact of COVID-19 disproportionately influenced Black and Latinx families. As a response to families' economic adversity during the pandemic, the federal government initiated the CARES Act. This type of federal response to lower-income families, however, is not new. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize and historicize previous and current efforts to mitigate the consequences of financial hardship on families by comparing the assumptions and efficacy of the Healthy Marriages Initiative and the CARES act.

The objective of this study was to explore whether household chaos measured during the COVID-19 pandemic is predicted by prepandemic parental and household characteristics. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered children's home environments and routines due to stay-at-home orders, school closures, and economic shocks. These disruptions have been especially challenging for low-income families who have limited resources and have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Household chaos, which captures routines, organization, stability, noise, and crowding in the home, is a documented threat to parent functioning and positive child development. The pandemic has likely exacerbated household chaos, especially for low-income families.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected all aspects of family life worldwide. This study aimed to examine the effects of several family factors on child outcomes during the pandemic in Indonesia, a country with approximately 260 million people. A range of child maladjustment and child competency variables were examined, along with a set of associated variables, including family income, psychosocial functioning, and family interactions, which were modelled via Structural Equation Modelling to understand the interrelationships between variables associated with child adjustment. Using an online survey, a total of 354 parents with at least one typically developing child between the age of 2 and 10 years participated in this study.

As is the case globally, lives and livelihoods in Nepal have been heavily impacted by covid-19. This report discusses the impact of covid-19 and the measures taken to address it on adolescent girls and women working in the adult entertainment sector. It focuses on covid-19’s effects on food security, shelter, health and employment for girls working in this sector. It also explores coping mechanisms and ends by recommending measures and policies that could be adopted during and after the pandemic to support the livelihoods and broader well-being of women and girls working in this sector.

As in many countries worldwide, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its containment measures aggravated poverty in Bangladesh. Poor and vulnerable population groups were among the hardest hit.  This brief draws on key findings from a UNDP Bangladesh survey on COVID-19 impacts during the pandemic’s first wave in early 2020. It covered 2,500 UNDP beneficiary households (HHs) across the country. In addition to severe income shocks, analysis reveals that the crisis amplified existing multidimensional vulnerabilities among HHs. Existing social safety net (SSN) programmes were inadequate to address different vulnerabilities. Against this backdrop, this brief underscores the need for Bangladesh’s continued attention on reforming its social protection system to make it more employment-focused, shock-responsive and universal in line with national priorities and for COVID recovery.

In Ghana, a population of teenage head porters have made the streets their sole living and breathing space. They are faced with several challenges as they live and work on the streets. The era of COVID-19 amidst several safety protocols that should be followed including maintaining physical and social distance as well as reducing movements appears to be detrimental to the survival patterns of teenager head porters as they live and work on the streets. Consequently, the study explores the experiences of teenage head porters in the wake of the pandemic to draw practice implications. Evidence was collected using semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 teenage head porters in Kumasi, Ghana. Narratives were analyzed thematically using reflective thematic analysis procedures. The study identified Kinship neglect and high exposure to infection as over-arching challenges experienced by teenage head porters on the streets amidst COVID-19.

The purpose of this study was to explore fathers' adjustment and father–child relationships during the first peak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak (April 2020). More particularly, the study analysed paternal perceptions of changes concerning familial economic conditions and children's psychological difficulties (viz., emotional problems and hyperactivity) during the lockdown produced by the current pandemic. Furthermore, it investigated the following correlates of fathers' parenting stress: socio-demographic condition, paternal individual stress, anxiety, depression and changes in the father–child relationship during the outbreak.