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The gendered effects of the ongoing lockdown and school closures in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Waves 1 and 2

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  • Daniela Casale

    (School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand)

  • Debra Shepherd

    (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)

Abstract

The data from Wave 1 of NIDS-CRAM showed that women were disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 crisis and the first month of the lockdown period in South Africa. Not only were they much more likely than men to lose their jobs between February and April or to work fewer hours compared to the pre-crisis period, they also took on a greater share of the additional childcare as a result of school closures and the suspension of all childcare services. In this policy paper, we use Wave 2 of NIDS-CRAM to explore how women and men have fared as the economy started to reopen and lockdown restrictions were relaxed. The data suggest that with the move from Level 5 lockdown in April to Level 3 lockdown in June, there was hardly any change in employment levels overall. However, women may have gained slightly relative to men. Nonetheless, given the very large job losses recorded among women between February and April (women lost 2 million jobs and men 1 million jobs), women still remained well behind men in reaching their pre-Covid employment levels in June. In contrast, men benefited more from the reopening of some school grades and childcare services in June. Compared to April, the hours men reported spending on childcare in June fell by more than the hours women reported spending on childcare. The data also show that much higher numbers of women than men found childcare to affect their ability to work, to work the same hours as before lockdown, and to search for work.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniela Casale & Debra Shepherd, 2020. "The gendered effects of the ongoing lockdown and school closures in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Waves 1 and 2," Working Papers 21/2020, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers356
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Claudia Hupkau & Barbara Petrongolo, 2020. "Work, Care and Gender during the COVID‐19 Crisis," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 623-651, September.
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    4. Titan Alon & Matthias Doepke & Jane Olmstead-Rumsey & Michèle Tertilt, 2020. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_163, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Almudena Sevilla & Sarah Smith, 2020. "Baby steps: the gender division of childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 169-186.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tim Köhler & Haroon Bhorat, 2021. "Can cash transfers aid labour market recovery? Evidence from South Africa’s special COVID-19 grant," Working Papers 202108, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    2. Timothy Köhler & Haroon Bhorat & Robert Hill & Benjamin Stanwix, 2023. "Lockdown stringency and employment formality: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 57(1), pages 1-28, December.
    3. Simone Schotte & Rocco Zizzamia, 2023. "The livelihood impacts of COVID-19 in urban South Africa: a view from below," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-30, January.
    4. Simone Schotte & Rocco Zizzamia, 2021. "The livelihood impacts of COVID-19 in urban South Africa: A view from below," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-56, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender; employment; childcare; Covid-19; lockdown; South Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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