Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and attempts to limit its spread have resulted in a contraction of the global economy. This study documents the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic among households, adults and children in low-income countries. To do so, it relies on longitudinal household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda, originating from pre-COVID-19 face-to-face household surveys plus phone surveys implemented during the pandemic. 256 million individuals—77% of the population—are estimated to live in households that have lost income during the pandemic. Attempts to cope with this loss are exacerbated by food insecurity and an inability to access medicine and staple foods. Finally, this study finds that student– teacher contact has dropped from a pre-COVID-19 rate of 96% to just 17% among households with school-aged children. These findings can inform decisions by governments and international organizations on measures to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Food insecurity has increased significantly in Lebanon during the past year; nearly 97% of the Syrian refugees on Lebanese soil are marginally or completely food insecure. Food basednegative coping mechanisms have also increased and infant and young child feeding practices have deteriorated. Food is the main expenditure for the most vulnerable households. According to the last available figure on this topic (2016), at least 100,000 children were working in Lebanon and this trend is expected increase. The objective of this report is to draw attention to the linkage between food insecurity and child labour, and its recent evolution in Lebanon. ACF and IRC developed questionnaires and interviewed 648 individuals between July and September 2020 in the Bekaa, Beirut, North and South Lebanon. The interviewees were mostly Syrian refugees but also Lebanese individuals and working children were included. The survey findings were complemented by existing research findings from NRC and CAMEALEON and data from the Lebanon Protection Consortium (LPC).

A generation of children in America are experiencing multiple hardships brought on by the coronavirus. Many millions more children are now hungry, missing out on school, and worried about their family’s economic future. For children who were struggling before COVID-19, things have gotten worse.

A year after - as the world still grapples with COVID-19, children and families' lives are being turned upside down with devastating impacts on children and their rights. From health systems are being overwhelmed, economies are sliding down, and children have had their education disrupted by school closures, these conditions affect children from around the world including children from the world’s poorest countries in Asia. To mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Save The Children Asia Team presents ‘Under the Same Sky: How a year of Covid-19 affected Asia-Pacific children’.​ This brief focuses on how children’s daily lives have changed, comparing how they spent a day before the pandemic and during it across the Asia region. It also reviews the impacts & changes to the lives of children in the past 1 year. Reflects on the impact of school closures, home isolation/quarantine, and community lockdown on children's wellbeing and education & health. It includes policy asks on the need for strengthening social protection systems for the most marginalized and vulnerable children in a post-pandemic world.

The European Union (EU) is committed to promoting and protecting the rights of children. In the era of Covid-19 pandemic, it is undertaking two major pieces of work to contribute to making this commitment a reality: a strategy on the rights of the child 2021-2024 and a child guarantee to ensure every child in Europe at risk of poverty has access to essential services. To find out what children are experiencing and what they say needs to change, the EU approached five child rights organizations – Child Fund Alliance, Eurochild, Save the Children, UNICEF and World Vision – to consult with children on their lives, aspirations and concerns for the future. This report presents the findings of that consultation with over 10,000 children aged 11–17 across Europe and beyond.

This note introduces parental uncertainty into parent–child monetary transfers. A parent questions the probability distribution of a child’s future economic success. As a result, the parent endogenously tilts his/her subjective probability model away from an approximating probability model. In this case, parental transfers increase with model uncertainty, thereby reducing the child’s effort and probability of economic success. This theoretical result raises several empirical questions, of which two are as follows. For one thing, informed parents (e.g. those who hold the same job as their child) transfer less money, and their child exerts more effort. Another is that economic uncertainty (e.g. recessions or pandemics) prompts higher parental transfer payments and reduces the child’s effort.

Child labour is a global phenomenon occurring predominantly in countries with lower socioeconomic status and resources. Societal and familial poverty, loss or incapacitation/illness of parents, lack of social security and protection, and ignorance about the value of, or limited access to, education are among the myriad reasons for the involvement of children in the workforce. Child labour is a barrier to the development of individual children and their society and economy. Global estimates indicate that 152 million children (64 million girls and 88 million boys) are working, accounting for almost one in 10 of all children worldwide. Currently the COVID-19 health pandemic and the resulting economic and labour market consequences are having a major impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Unfortunately, impoverished families and their children are often the first to suffer, which may push many more vulnerable children into child labour situations. Child labour in India is more prevalent than in many other countries, with approximately 10 million children actively engaged in, or seeking, work. This paper focuses on the issue of child labour, its causes and its ill effects. Further, it also reviews the international legal framework relating to child labour and legislative issues in India.

Understanding how child and adolescent health is influenced by fluctuations in socioeconomic status has important public health and policy implications, as children are often subjected to both micro and macro-level socioeconomic events. This study provides the first systematic review to date on the relationship between changes in household or parental socioeconomic status and subsequent child and adolescent health outcomes.

Over the last two decades, there has been evidence of significant improvements in the overall living standards of Young Lives families. Young people are substantially better off than their parents and have aspirations for social mobility, despite the impact of persistent inequalities undermining educational outcomes and the chances of getting a decent job. New research from the Young Lives COVID-19 phone survey in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam paints a worrying picture of how the economic and social impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and related restrictions could not only halt progress made over the last two generations, but could also reverse life chances and entrench existing inequalities for many young people, hitting those living in poor communities hardest.

This paper reports a study with families of children with disabilities in Uganda during the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, known as COVID-19. Families of children with disabilities in Uganda are well informed about COVID-19 and try to follow prevention measures. Families of children with disabilities have difficulties meeting daily basic needs as they were unable to work and had no income during the COVID-19 related lock down. The COVID-19 response affects access to health and rehabilitation services for children with disabilities in Uganda. Parents of children with disabilities struggle with home education and learning due to lack of access to accessible learning materials and learning support in Uganda. The COVID-19 response affects the peer support networks and social support for parents of children with disabilities in Uganda. Children with disabilities and their families should be involved and considered in the development and implementation of the COVID-19 response.

COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented human and health crisis and has been affecting lives in many forms. What seemed to be a health crisis eventually became a major ongoing global economic crisis. Sector-wide disruptions are threatening both short- and long-term livelihoods and well-being of millions of youth around the globe, especially youth from vulnerable communities. Business closures threatened the operations and soundness of the enterprises resulting in layoffs and wage losses, affecting a major chunk of youth including the young care leavers of alternative care programmes in Asia. This called for customised interventions and support for such young care leavers. Immediate actions were needed for managing their mental health, for maintaining education continuity and for reskilling of such young care leavers to prepare them to cope with the pandemic. This article is based on the learning and experiences of SOS Children’s Villages responses to supporting nearly 1,500 care leavers in various Asian countries.

The corona virus has emerged as a dreaded disease globally, and it is no longer a news that the virus is a killer disease. It has paralyzed individual and nations’ economic activities due to the governments’ orders made to curtail its spread. Based on this, the researchers explored parental responses to social and safety needs of their school children during the pandemic in Ogun State, Nigeria. Four research questions were raised, and a questionnaire titled “COVID-19 Pandemic and Parental Response to School Children Survey” (online) was used to elicit data from 5,340 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using frequency count, simple percentage, mean, standard deviation, and Analysis of Variance.

Bangladesh has been going through incremental trend of GDP growth rates for a long time. The GDP is the key aspect to measure the economic growth of a country. But the current world wide pandemic due to the COVID-19 hardly affects the world’s economy as well as Bangladesh. The present lockdown make the wheel of the industries uncertain. The main source of the GDP of this country is ready made garment sector which has been shut down since mid of March 2020. Already 20 billion of cancellation of foreign order makes the situation worse. Also, the foreign remittance has been decline dramatically due to the loss of jobs of Bangladeshi workers in foreign countries. The overall economic situation declines in this country due to the COVID-19 which has huge impact on the health care system especially in maternal and child health. In this paper, the economic situation of Bangladesh before and during the COVID-19 has been shown. Also, how the COVID-19 would affect the condition of maternal and child health across the country directly as well as indirectly through the GDP has been discussed.

This article has been developed based on a systematic review of research studies conducted in the last 10 years on family-based childcare systems and a rapid review of research and assessments conducted in 2020 to explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on adoption and foster care in India. The study explains child vulnerabilities with a focus on challenges to adoption and foster care before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings depict that India is home to a large number of vulnerable children who have been living with hardships, and the COVID-19 pandemic has put them at a higher risk of adversity

As 2020 draws to a close, the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating. Without urgent action, global poverty and inequality will deepen dramatically. Hundreds of millions of people have already lost their jobs, gone further into debt or skipped meals for months. Research by Oxfam and Development Pathways shows that over 2 billion people have had no support from their governments in their time of need. This study shows that none of the social protection support to those who are unemployed, elderly people, children and families provided in low- and middle-income countries has been adequate to meet basic needs. 41% of that government support was only a one-off payment and almost all government support has now stopped. Decades of social policy focused on tiny levels of means-tested support have left most countries completely unprepared for the COVID-19 economic crisis. Yet, countries such as South Africa and Bolivia have shown that a universal approach to social protection is affordable, and that it has a profound impact on reducing inequality and protecting those who need it most.