The Gendered Impacts of COVID-19

In just a few short months, the emergence of COVID-19 has changed everything. Every aspect of our daily lives has been disrupted, and the same is true for people all over the world. In all crises, there are groups who experience greater vulnerabilities and are disproportionately impacted. As the novel coronavirus has spread, it has exposed and deepened pre-existing disparities, and it continues to threaten and dismantle progress in the fight against global inequality.

Who is hit hardest by the outbreak’s social and economic impacts? Women and girls.  

Source: UN Women

Women are on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak, both in the workplace and at home. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), women make 70% of the health and social care sector. Women are also predominant caregivers in the home, and the United Nations reports that women perform three times more unpaid care work globally than men. As more people contract the virus, women and girls will be exposed at higher rates through their roles as caregivers and essential workers, which often have largely female workforces.

At the same time, the outbreak of coronavirus has also resulted in the most significant disruption to formal education in recent history, leaving millions without any access to education. When schools close, evidence shows that sexual exploitation of women and girls increases, child labor and recruitment into militias rise, and early marriage and adolescent pregnancy increases. During the 2014 outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone, one study found that adolescent pregnancy increased by up to 65% in some communities.

For many girls, this year might be the last time they step foot in a classroom. Based on the lessons learned during the Ebola outbreak, we know that the longer girls are out of school, the less likely they are to ever return. Evidence shows girls’ enrollment rates in some Ebola-affected regions have never returned to pre-crisis levels. In Sierra Leone, one study found that girls in hard hit regions were 16% less likely to be in school, even after they reopened.

Girls face a challenge returning to school for a number of reasons, including societal expectations they should transition to income-generating activities, increased rates of pregnancy and early marriage, as well as families’ inability to afford school fees and the assumption that resources are better spent on male siblings. A startling prediction made by the Malala Foundation estimated that by the time this crisis passes, 10 million more secondary school-aged girls could be out of school if dropouts increase at the same rate as the Ebola epidemic. If girls do return to the classroom following the pandemic, they may face greater learning challenges caused by new responsibilities taken on at home as well as less time for schoolwork. So now we ask: How can we support girls’ response and recovery to this crisis?

Today, girls’ continued engagement with their education is more critical than ever before.

In some places, whether they come back to the classroom may even depend upon our ability to adapt quickly at a time when they need it most. Given what we know from past outbreaks and crises, it is critical that a gender equity lens be applied not only to our response but integrated into every aspect of recovery. The rapid onset of coronavirus has demonstrated the importance of building inclusive and resilient social and economic systems, and to do this we need women and girls to lead the way.

In order to keep girls learning during this time, Educate! has set out to develop innovative, low-tech distance learning solutions, including radio, telecoms (text and calls), and social media engagement. We aim to deliver components of the student experience digitally, and our goal is to ensure that girls maintain a connection with their education while gaining critical hard and soft skills to be resilient throughout this unprecedented crisis.

Want to learn more about our strategy? Visit our coronavirus response page.