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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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211 - 225 of 316
Impact of COVID-19 on gender equality and women’s empowerment in East and Southern Africa
Institution: UN Women, UNFPA - United Nations Population Fund
Published: March 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended national development plans and is likely to derail the planned trajectories of most countries towards achieving the 2030 Agenda. Not only has it had a significant impact on the health and mental wellbeing of millions of people globally, but it has also set off a global economic crisis. UN Women and UNFPA have compiled an assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on gender equality in the East and Southern Africa region. The aim of the report is to outline the opportunities and constraints for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the post-COVID-19 recovery phase and identify the key gaps and challenges in current policies and programmes in the East and Southern Africa region.

COVID-19: a threat to progress against child marriage
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: March 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic is profoundly affecting the everyday lives of girls: their physical and mental health, their education, and the economic circumstances of their families and communities. Changes like these increase the likelihood of child marriage, and over the next decade, up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides as a result of the pandemic.
Battling the perfect storm: adapting programmes to end child marriage to COVID-19 and beyond
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: March 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic is quickly exacerbating key factors that put children at risk of marrying before their 18th birthday. This learning brief synthesizes evidence to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting child marriage risk factors and how UNICEF, within the UNFPA–UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage, is pivoting to identify and respond to risk factors and adapt programming to COVID-19 limitations. With a focus on UNICEF’s response in five Global Programme countries: Bangladesh, Ghana, Nepal, Uganda and Yemen, the brief summarizes key lessons learned to inform current and future programme planning with evidence from the first and second waves of the pandemic.
COVID-19 and the pivotal role of grandparents: childcare and income support in the UK and South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Sara Cantillon; Elena Moore; Nina Teasdale

Published: March 2021   Journal: Feminist Economics
The COVID-19 global crisis and the “stay-home” response taken by most governments has starkly exposed the dependence of formal economies on the invisible and unpaid care labor of women – a dependence that has intensified during the pandemic as public childcare provision and schools are shut and parents work from home. This article focuses specifically on the childcare and income support provided by grandparents in the United Kingdom and South Africa. In undertaking this comparative analysis the study demonstrates the universality of intergenerational interdependence and the contextual specificity of grandparental childcare and income provision, as well as the differential impacts of suspending, or risking, such supports during the pandemic. Grandparents within and across households make substantial contributions to economic, social, and affective lives, and the study argues for greater recognition of these crucial contributions and the development of a more intersectional understanding of the provision of care work.
The impact of COVID-19 related lockdown on the prevalence of spousal violence against women in Kurdistan region of Iraq

AUTHOR(S)
Kazhan I. Mahmood; Sherzad A. Shabu; Karwan M. M-Amen (et al.)

Published: February 2021   Journal: Journal of Interpersonal Violence
There is increasing concern about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown’s social and economic consequences on gender-based violence. This study aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-based violence by comparing the prevalence of spousal violence against women before and during the COVID-19 related lockdown periods. This study was conducted in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq using a self-administered online questionnaire survey after the COVID-19 lockdown period in June 2020.
Time for a better bargain: how the aid system shortchanges women and girls in crisis
Institution: CARE
Published: February 2021
More than one in 33 people worldwide (235 million) will need humanitarian assistance and protection this year.1 Women and girls are typically disproportionately affected by conflict and disasters. They are generally more likely to be displaced and subjected to genderbased violence and livelihood loss. 2 The international community has long recognized that investing in women-led crisis response and prioritizing gender equality are key to effectively meet humanitarian and recovery needs, and to achieve peace and prosperity.3 Yet despite this recognition, women’s and girls’ priorities often go unmet and their voices and expertise go unheeded. While women constitute the bulk of COVID-19 carers and first responders, women-led groups remain undervalued and under-resourced. Funding to frontline women’s organizations in fragile and conflict-affected areas remains at a paltry 0.2% of total bilateral aid, despite an upward trend of increased total aid committed to support gender equality efforts.
Shifting inequalities? parents’ sleep, anxiety, and calm during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and the United States
Published: February 2021   Journal: Men and Masculinities
As a cultural ideal, hegemonic masculinity positions men as breadwinners in the gender order—a position that systematically benefits men and disadvantages women. Because economic success is key to performing masculinity, the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout offer an opportunity to evaluate shifting gender dynamics amidst rapid changes in employment and domestic demands for heterosexual couples with children. Closures of schools, daycare facilities, and workplaces around the world shifted more paid and unpaid work into the home, leading journalists and academics to question whether the pandemic would be a catalyst to “un-stall” the gender revolution. Specifically, they wondered if men would take on more domestic work, generating a more equal gender division of household labor. This essay argues that traditional gender roles were reinforced for U.S. parents but were eroded for Australian parents—with disparate consequences for their well-being during the first few months of the pandemic.
Reimagining girls’ education: solutions to keep girls learning in emergencies
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: February 2021

This report presents an empirical overview of what works to support learning outcomes for girls in emergencies. Research shows that girls in emergencies are disadvantaged at all stages of education and are more likely to be out-of-school than in non-emergency settings. Girls are also struggling to learn. This solutions book seeks to highlight promising evidence-based actions in education for decision makers who are designing and implementing interventions to support girls’ education in low and middle-income country humanitarian settings and settings where education has been interrupted by the COVID‑19 pandemic. It documents practical examples of approaches that have been or are being tested, and from which lessons can be drawn. The overarching aim is that this evidence be used to inform programming in crises and support diverse stakeholders in mitigating the impact of emergencies on girls’ education.

Progress toward ending child marriage over the last decade: a missed opportunity to deliver for girls
Institution: Save the Children
Published: February 2021

Compared to the previous generation, the incidence of child marriage worldwide has declined. However, strides forward have suffered from substantial limitations. At the global level, child marriage is still too widespread, and progress too slow, to meet the SDG target in 2030. At the regional level, some areas have achieved remarkable progress, while others are lagging behind. Worryingly, in the majority of cases, progress over the past decade (2010-2020) has not matched advancements achieved in the decade prior (2000-2010). At the country level, inclusive progress hasn’t always materialized: in a number of countries, gaps are widening not only between wealth groups, but also on the basis of residence. In a nutshell, progress has been unevenly distributed not only across time, but also across geographies, with stark divides both among and within countries. COVID-19 is expected to have a damaging impact on child protection, including according to Save the Children’s own projections. Urgent efforts are needed to guarantee girls’ rights and prevent devastating setbacks. In the longer term, more research is needed to understand what drives child marriage, so as to tackle it more effectively in different regions.

Prospects for children: a global outlook through 2025
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: January 2021

This report was prompted by an internal request for an assessment of the changing external environment, and its impact on children, to inform the preparation of UNICEF’s next Strategic Plan. It was produced collectively by staff from UNICEF's Global Insight team and reflects their views and perspectives. The report benefited from feedback from various UNICEF staff. In addition, its initial findings were presented and debated at a virtual consultation held with 32 youth experts, leaders, and activists from around the world on January 8th 2021. We are especially grateful to participants of the consultation, some of whose views are presented throughout this report.

The gendered impacts of COVID-19 on labor markets in Latin America and the Caribbean

AUTHOR(S)
Emilia Cucagna; Javier Romero

Institution: The World Bank
Published: January 2021
This note explores the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on labor outcomes among males and females and identifies the dimensions that render workers more resilient to job losses. These findings are then used to discuss implications for policymaking. To overcome the scarcity of data generated by the pause in most statistical operations resulting from social-distancing measures, High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) collected in the region by the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank are used. In this way, the note aims to estimate the gendered outcomes in the labor markets associated with the deepest recession since World War II
Domestic violence and its relationship with quality of life in pregnant women during the outbreak of COVID-19 disease

AUTHOR(S)
Somayyeh Naghizadeh; Mojgan Mirghafourvand; Roghaye Mohammadirad

Published: January 2021   Journal: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
During the COVID-19 pandemic, pregnant women bear considerable physical and psychological stress because of their special conditions, which combined with other stress factors such as violence, makes their situation even more critical. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of domestic violence and its relationship with quality of life in pregnant women during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Exploring resource scarcity and contextual influences on wellbeing among young refugees in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, Uganda: findings from a qualitative study

AUTHOR(S)
Carmen H. Logie; Moses Okumu; Maya Latif (et al.)

Published: January 2021   Journal: Conflict and Health
Contextual factors including poverty and inequitable gender norms harm refugee adolescent and youths’ wellbeing. Our study focused on Bidi Bidi refugee settlement that hosts more than 230,000 of Uganda’s 1.4 million refugees. We explored contextual factors associated with wellbeing among refugee adolescents and youth aged 16–24 in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement.
The impact of closing schools on working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence using panel data from Japan

AUTHOR(S)
Eiji Yamamura; Yoshiro Tsustsui

Published: January 2021   Journal: Review of Economics of the Household
COVID-19 has led to the closure of various schools in Japan to cope with the pandemic. This study explores how school closure influences parents’ work style based on short panel data for the period of school closure from mid-March to mid-April 2020. Specifically, it analyzes how the presence of their children influences parents’ work at home and examines how the effect differs by the parent’s gender.
Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany

AUTHOR(S)
Mathias Huebener; Sevrin Waights; C. Katharina Spiess (et al.)

Published: January 2021   Journal: Review of Economics of the Household
This study examines the effects of Covid-19 and related restrictions on individuals with dependent children in Germany. It specifically focuses on the role of day care center and school closures, which may be regarded as a “disruptive exogenous shock” to family life. It makes use of a novel representative survey of parental well-being collected in May and June 2020 in Germany, when schools and day care centers were closed but while other measures had been relaxed and new infections were low. In this descriptive analysis, well-being during this period with a pre-crisis period for different groups is compared.
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UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.

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Each quarterly thematic digest features the latest evidence drawn from the Children and COVID-19 Research Library on a particular topic of interest.
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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.