Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This study examines how care arrangements, general and altered working conditions, and worries influenced subjective well-being at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for working parents in Germany. Prior research suggests several reasons for declines in subjective well-being, particularly for working mothers. This study employs Pearlin's (1989) stress process model to explore the role of parental childcare, altered working conditions and amplified worries of working parents in terms of increased stressors and modified resources to cope with the extraordinary situation.

This paper estimates the impact of a large negative childcare shock on gender gaps in entrepreneurship using the shock created by national COVID-19 school closure policies. The paper leverages a unique data set of monthly enterprise data collected from a repeated cross-section of business owners across 50 countries via Facebook throughout 2020 and in 2021. The paper shows that, globally, female-led firms were, on average, 4 percentage points more likely to close their business and experienced larger revenue declines than male-led firms during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 (male firms closed at a rate of 17 percent in 2020, and 12 percent in 2021). The gender gap in firm closures persisted into 2021. The closing of schools, a key part of the care infrastructure, led to higher business closures, and women with children were more likely to close their business in response to a school closure policy than men with children. Female entrepreneurs were found to take on a greater share of the increase in the domestic and care work burden than male entrepreneurs. Finally, the paper finds that women entrepreneurs in societies with more conservative norms with respect to gender equality were significantly more likely to close their business and increase the time spent on domestic and care responsibilities in response to a school closure policy, relative to women in more liberal societies. The paper provides global evidence of a motherhood penalty and childcare constraint to help explain gender inequalities in an entrepreneurship context.

At the onset of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there was global concern about the negative indirect impacts the crisis would have on girls and women and their human capital. Two years into the crisis, this brief summarizes the evidence to date on how the prediction of a shadow crisis has played out in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).The brief is intended as a call to action for policymakers, since available research sets off multiple alarm bells. It also proposes urgent policy responses. Evidence to date confirms that the COVID-19 crisis has had profound negative impacts on the education, health, employment and empowerment of girls and women including in SSA. Available data is still limited, but what is known to date suggests that we are seeing the tip of an iceberg. Many impacts will have long term repercussions for girls’ and women’s human capital. Decision makers are at a pivotal moment to invest now in women and girls, to neutralize immediate but also prolonged costs to individuals, societies and economies.

This is an autoethnographic essay that explores how the Covid-19 pandemic affect(ed) Black women and girls. Through storytelling and narrative and performative writing, it paints a clearer picture of the lives lost due to the coronavirus by highlighting specific tragedies that occurred, and by examining the larger societal context that allowed such tragedies to unfold. In addition, it offers an intimate look at the emotional processes that occur when one is diagnosed with the virus.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social protection systems in the Arab region were weak, fragmented, not inclusive, and non-transparent. They were also costly and unsustainable. Underinvestment in these systems and exclusion of vulnerable populations were key challenges. The COVID-19 crisis spotlighted the problems and presented a historic opportunity to address some of the challenges facing social protection systems. Lessons learned in various countries were identified as useful examples for change, in addition to certain innovations. This report embarked on actionable policy research to examine and assess the interplay of the social policy dimensions, global experiences, and regional responses to the pandemic in the Arab region. By critically engaging with the actions and priorities of a variety of stakeholders, the report develops and advocates for policies for the judicious and methodical implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, combating inequality and supporting the principle of leaving no one behind, as instigated in the Agenda 2030.

Using data from the UK, we show that girls have been affected more than boys by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing. These gender differences are more pronounced in lower-income families. Our results are consistent with previous findings of larger pandemic effects on mental health of women.

Cambodia has seen an increasing trend in migration over the last two decades pushed by better job prospects abroad and closer bilateral cooperation with neighbouring countries. Migrants make immense contribution to the Cambodian economy through regular remittances sent home and by enriching the labour market with skills picked up from abroad. Women are almost equal contributors of these benefits, yet they face disproportionate challenges in their migration journey and when they return. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need for an effective reintegration plan to help women transition into their local environment as a starting point in economically empowering them. The main objective of this literature review is to examine the current research materials available and identify key industries and micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises in Cambodia that can potentially provide employment and income-generating opportunities to low or unskilled female migrant workers in a post-COVID-19 environment. The report details the profile and demographics of Cambodian migrant women to design intervention efforts for their economic empowerment. The recommendations put forward in this report call for an effective reintegration path and creation of an enabling environment for migrant women to be economically empowered.

Many youth with mental health needs cannot access treatment, with multiply-marginalized youth, such as sexual minority youth of Color (SMYoC), experiencing both structural and identity-related barriers to care. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to exacerbate multi-level treatment access barriers facing SMYoC youth nationwide. However, little large-scale research has examined access to mental health care among SMYoC across the United States, either during or prior to the pandemic. Such work is critical to understanding and ameliorating barriers in this domain. Using data from adolescents who self-identified as SMYoC and who endorsed a desire for mental health support during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 470, ages 13–16, from 43 U.S. states), this study examined associations between state-level, structural factors (income inequality; mental health-care provider shortage; anti-Black racism; homophobia; and the interaction between anti-Black racism and homophobia) and SMYoC mental health treatment access.

It is widely recognized that periods of crisis affect men and women differently, mediated by their access to resources and information, as well as social and institutional structures that may systematically disadvantage women from being able to access relief, institutional support, and rehabilitation. To capture the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, this study conducted phone surveys in seven countries spread across Asia and Africa. The study was designed as a longitudinal panel study with five rounds of data collection in Ghana, Nepal, Nigeria, and Senegal, and three rounds of data collection in Kenya, Niger, and Uganda. Both men and women were administered the same survey, with some modifications made across countries to adapt to local contexts. This report gives an overview of our findings covering several topics including income loss, coping strategies, labor and time use, food and water insecurity and child education outcomes.

Bangladesh’s education system met intensified challenges throughout the COVID-19 pandemic on top of the difficulties students have historically faced. A recent study on the impacts of COVID-19 school closures in rural communities in Bangladesh clarifies issues of remote learning access, management, and monitoring, as well as new strains on students’ time use. It also reveals general impacts on mental and physical health, economic status, as well as gendered effects including child marriage. Based on evaluations of mitigation measures, recommendations for comprehensive policies, provision of technical, financial, and social support, and improvements in education systems emerged.

With sudden school closures in 2020, about 250 million children in India from preschool through high school faced disruptions to their education. A case study assessed the gendered impact of COVID-19 school closures on education, health, well-being, and protection of adolescents in India. Based on surveys and interviews in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, findings point to the digital divide for girls as well as shared barriers to effective remote learning. Informed by the evidence, the study presents recommendations to scale up efforts to improve remote learning, reduce digital divide and strengthen teacher support, with a particular attention to addressing gendered differences.

In Kenya, COVID-19 school closures escalated education inequalities especially for girls and young people in rural areas. These closures exacerbated adolescent mental health issues, food and economic insecurity, and experiences of violence. COVID-19 response programs implemented by both the Government of Kenya and non-state actors were not able to fully mitigate the impacts of school closures for adolescents, teachers, or schools. Continued efforts to understand the implications of school closures and to support vulnerable students are needed.

As schools closed and reopened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a study was conducted to assess the gendered impacts of COVID-19 school closures on adolescent girls and boys in three districts in the province of Punjab. Data as well as discussions and interviews with adolescents, teachers, and parents shed light on difficulties in accessing and adjusting to remote learning, learning loss, deterioration of behaviors and health, and other effects. Based on these findings and further reflections by stakeholders on the successes and gaps of mitigation measures, the case study proposes recommendations for improved teacher training, digital access, alternative learning options, and a gendered focus in interventions.

COVID-19 has reaffirmed that in the face of crises, social and economic fall-out is gendered. From the risk of job loss and economic instability to rising care responsibilities and the experience of violence inside the home, gender inequalities have tended to widen during the pandemic (1, 2). While countries focus on health and mortality impacts of the disease, a mounting, damaging gendered social and economic crisis threatens to roll back decades of development progress, exposing the fragility of equality gains. Social protection has been a key policy response to address pandemic-related social and economic crises; however, attention to gender has been insufficient. Less than one in five global social protection measures during COVID-19 has addressed gender, such as supporting women in informal employment, mitigating risks of violence, and confronting the unequal distribution of care work. Policy priorities (see the box) must include closing gendered research gaps in the COVID-19 recovery.

Ethiopia has made remarkable progress over the last two decades. The poverty rate has halved (from 46% to 24%), the primary completion rate has more than doubled (from 18% to 50%) and the odds of marriage for girls under the age of 15 have fallen to less than 1 in 10. However, alongside the covid-19 pandemic, the last two years have seen increasing ethnic and religious tension and violence, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has struggled to deliver on promised political transformations. In Ethiopia GAGE has collected baseline and midline data with approximately 8,000 rural and urban adolescents in Afar, Amhara and Oromia regions as well as Dire Dawa City Administration; fielded two rounds of covid-19 phone surveys; and is running ongoing participatory research groups with older girls and boys (15–19 years). Nested within the Ethiopian study, GAGE is also carrying out an impact evaluation of the adolescent empowerment programme ‘Act With Her’ (AWH). This brief highlights headline emerging findings from this unique dataset, as well as providing links to more comprehensive publications and an annex with key quantitative indicators.