For better or worse, all of our careers are shifted, shaped and sometimes shortened by influential figures in our lives. When it comes to women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, access to support structures are even more important for growth and development. Unfortunately, many females still have to overcome barriers of prejudice and inequality.
With the announced hard-lockdown in March 2020, and as with most other non-essential activities, all fieldwork at Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) was shutdown. However, researchers at RESEP were quick to realise that rapidly updated, accurate information on key outcomes such as unemployment, household income, child hunger and access to government grants would be of vital importance for sound decision making during a global pandemic.
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.
Quantitative analysis of education in South Africa and southern Africa. Analysis of education data sets, particularly international educational evaluations (SACMEQ, TIMSS, PIRLS, PISA-D). The focus will be on social gradients and resilience, closely linked to current research undertaken by Resep.
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