A new Youth Capital report, Matrics ‘on the Fringe’: a Review of the Second Chance Programme, has recently been released. The report draws from the findings of a technical report compiled by RESEP researcher Martin Gustafsson who, assisted by PhD candidate Lunga Swelindawo, analysed government reports and surveyed online material to produce a qualitative study of second-chance Matric opportunities
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.
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.