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The FACT Team

‘What I learnt is that a woman she’s the one who takes care of the family’: Women in Covid-19


This blog summarises some of the initial findings from the South African project.


By Sadiyya Haffejee, Anita Mwanda and Thandi Simelani.


Covid-19 has shed a largely unflattering light on many societal conditions. In South Africa, as in many countries globally, the pandemic highlighted glaring socio-economic inequalities and amplified existing challenges. To understand the everyday realities of families during this period, we began recruiting families for our ethnographic, longitudinal study in July 2020. Forty-six individuals from twenty-one families initially joined the study and shared weekly reflections via whatsapp in response to prompts asking about social distancing measures, housework and schoolwork and relationships within families, mental health and stigma. Of the 46 participants, 76% are female and 24% are male, 35% are children/adolescents and 65% adults, 10% of our families live in informal housing and 86% have access to regular electricity. The majority of our families reside in under-resourced communities, with 4 of the 21 having no regular source of income (even prior to covid).


Consistent with national data and anecdotal evidence, many of the participants in our study also framed their experiences of the pandemic and the lockdown in terms of economic uncertainty. Participants shared difficulties accessing food parcels, and spoke about feeling stressed and anxious with no income coming into the home and also spoke about their concerns regarding the education and well-being of their children.


One participant, Gugu shared:


"This lockdown really affected me, I can’t buy food, cosmetics, nothing because my situation is tight. Even my policies have lapsed, none of them is active because I cannot afford to pay as I used to before. It really affected me and my kids, because on the 7th of May, the last born was turning 7 and I could not even buy a cake"


Later, even as the lockdown measures eased and she was able to re-open her early childhood centre, Gugu noted that her position remained unchanged as she could not carry the costs involved in adhering to the safety protocols, like purchasing of PPE and could not resume working.


Daniel similarly adds,” I have been not working, it has been very difficult to ensure everything needed in the house is available, especially when you have young kids who don't understand”.



While the increasing economic difficulties were a common theme across all our families, with the majority of our participants being women, we noted the unequal and additional burden of responsibility carried by women. Of the 21 families we recruited, 11 are female-headed. A female-headed household may be defined as a household where there are only adult women and no adult men, or where there are both women and men, but a woman is identified as being the nominal household head and responsible for financially supporting the family (Hall & Mokomane, 2018, p. 37). Female-headed households are not unusual in South Africa, with research showing that in 2018, approximately 37.9 % of households in South Africa were headed by women (Kamer, 2020). Existing research show that female-headed households are more vulnerable to poverty, have more child dependents and experience higher rates of unemployment (Nwosu & Ndinda, 2018). Naturally, this situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Data from the nationally representative National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) (Casale and Posel 2020), found that of the estimated 3 million job losses reported in the first 3 months of the pandemic, women accounted for two third of these losses. This may be because many more women are employed in sectors of the economy that have been most severely impacted by the lockdown.


The experiences of women in our study attest to this. Says, Otsile S,


“Work wise was hard being at home as a beautician and being self-employed it's not an easy road for one but through God's grace we survived but the hardest was losing an income on daily basis and debts pilling up was the worst ever”.


Together with the instability that comes with working in certain sectors, existing and additional childcare duties, like homeschooling children, creates further constraints for women (Casale & Shepherd, 2020). Findings from the second wave of the NIDS-CRAM data showed that twice as many women than men found that caring for children impacted negatively on their ability to work, to work the same hours as before lockdown, and to search for work.


Talking to the additional care responsibilities that she has, as compared to her partner, Lila N says,


“I find it more difficult because everything is on me, and the children when they are hungry, they won't go to their father but they will come to me, so its making me think that I'm no longer supporting them the way I use to...”


She adds in a later activity, “Yes, their dad helps with what he wants. So, what I learnt is that a woman she’s the one who takes care of the family”.


Adolescent participants also observed the role that mum’s played, with Nina K adding,

“During the lockdown my mother had to stop working and close her day care centre”

Another adolescent participant, Sally, observed, “my mom is the biggest provider in the house”.


These excerpts suggests that young women, like Nina and Sally, are already aware of the load that women carry. In this, our findings are consistent with a breadth of research that talks to the multiple burdens placed on women; in addition to household duties, women, more so then men, take on additional care roles, ensuring communities are fed and the sick are cared for (UN Women, 2020). Again this is not unusual or specific to the pandemic; with research showing that in South Africa, the bulk of community care work is done by women, who are usually not compensated for their labour (Hunter, 2012; Oosthuizen, 2018). Nelson (2020) reflecting on her experiences on a covid community response team, observed that women made up 72% of those involved in community support. While so much of this care work and activism work is inspiring and lauded, it glorifies the continued socio-economic abuse of women. Praise and admiration does not feed and educate women or families. Gender equitable policies, socio-economic redress and greater inclusion of women within all levels of society may.



References:

Casale, D. and Posel, D. (2020) “Gender and the early effects of the COVID-19 crisis in the paid and unpaid economies in South Africa.” National Income Dynamics (NIDS)-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (CRAM) Wave 1 Working Paper No. 4, Available at https://cramsurvey.org/reports


Casale, D. & Shepherd, D. (2020) The gendered effects of the ongoing lockdown and school closures in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Waves 1 and 2



Hall, K. & Mokomane, Z. (2018). The shape of children’s families and households:

A demographic overview. In South Africa Child Gauge. UCT.


Hunter, N. (2012). The Economic and Gender Consequences of South Africa’sHome-based Care Policy. Social Policy & Administration, 46(6). DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2012.00861.xV.


Nelson, A. (2020). In the communities, the SA Covid-19 ground response is mostly female. The Daily Maverick, 21 May 2020. Retrieved from https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-05-21-in-the-communities-the-sa-covid-19-ground-response-is-mostly-female/


Nwosu, C.O. & Ndinda, C. (2018). Female household headship and poverty in

South Africa: an employment-based Analysis. ERSA working paper 761


Oosthuizen M (2018) Counting Women’s Work in South Africa. Incorporating Unpaid Work into Estimates of the Economic Lifecycle in 2010. Cape Town: Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town. P. 12.


United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). (2020). COVID‐19 and ending violence against women and girls.


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