Research and key findings

The aim of this empirical study was twofold. On the one hand to provide a detailed and comprehensive description of the general condition of girls in the target communities in the aftermath of the pandemic outbreak. On the other hand, to get some insights on the impact on the current and future outcomes for these girls.

The quantitative research involved 3.443 adolescent girls in six countries, selected among the participants in the Congregations’ programs. The survey included the in-person administration of a questionnaire with the support of enumerators.

The research team initially explored responses to the questions about school participation and school enrolment, which highlighted a slight decrease in school participation for girls over 15 years of age, who have reported to be more likely involved in extra-curricular activities. They also reported difficulty in studying more frequently than girls under 15.

As the research involved girls from both urban, semi-urban and rural areas, the results show that school participation decreased relatively more in rural/remote  areas rather than in urban/semi-urban and even more severely for girls living in informal settlements. This could be a consequence of the different school closure policies implemented during the pandemic. In fact, 22% of schools in urban or semi-urban areas versus 9% of schools in rural or remote areas were still closed at the time of the survey, and more than 55% of schools attended by girls living in informal settlements were still closed at the time of the survey.

Girls reported that face-to-face classes were primarily substituted by online classes and secondarily by the use of educational apps or WhatsApp groups. Therefore, access to technology has been key to ensure the continuity of girls’ education. Even though the larger share of girls who report having attended online classes during the pandemic live in informal settlements, girls living in urban areas more frequently report having used the internet for schoolwork. Despite differences in the availability of material resources and internet access, respondents reported having met with friends with the same frequency.

One significant highlight that emerged from the quantitative analysis, is the significant difference in the incidence of child labor by age group. More than 20% of girls under 15 years of age versus 5% of girls between 15 and 18 report having being engaged in child labor (girls 18 years of age or older have not been included in this study). For girls under 15 years, child labor is defined in this report as working more than 14 hours a week for a paid job or doing household chores for more than 21 hours a week. For girls aged between 15 and 18, child labor is defined as working a paid job for more than 43 hours a week.

Almost three out of four girls reported being in good or excellent health, and this figure does not change with respect to age or area of residence. This figure is coherent with the data on disability as the same percentage of girls who report being in good or excellent health is the same as the figure reported for not having any disability.

Substantial differences emerge when we consider access to clean water. This  is an essential condition for personal hygiene and maintaining good health status. Girls in urban/semi-urban areas have more frequent access to clean water at home than girls in rural/remote areas and even more than girls living in informal settlements. For girls living in rural or remote areas, the discomfort due to this impediment is exacerbated by the difficulty of buying sanitation pads during the lockdown. Actions by the congregations to mitigate the adverse impact of restrictive measures due to Covid-19 have also concerned this aspect. In rural or remote areas, more than a third of girls engaged in programs run by the congregations received a menstrual hygiene kit on at least some occasions.

The consequences of a family bereavement have been different with regard to age. In fact, almost half of the girls over 15, who have been asked about the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on their household income, reported that this event had an extremely significant impact.

In general, for one out of six girls, there has been a decrease in the number of daily meals since the beginning of the pandemic. Currently, about 10% of girls live in a situation of food insecurity, i.e., eating less than two meals a day. Food Insecurity also seems to be correlated with other vulnerabilities, such as income loss, bad health status and lack of access to clean water.

Less than 30% of girls report having witnessed at least occasional conflicts at home during the Covid-19 lockdown, and more than half of them say that this has changed with respect to before the pandemic.

Obviously, conflicts at home significantly impacted how the girls felt at home, especially if they are were forced to spend most of their time confined at home. More than 60% of girls reported a sense of worry, and half of them have experienced sadness. The most frequently reported feelings are “negative,” and fewer girls reported “positive” feelings, such as “feeling relaxed, protected and happy”. These emotions have been reported each by 20% of girls. Household income loss and deteriorated living conditions are the most likely explanation for these bad feelings. In fact, there is a significant association between the severity of household-income loss and the most frequently reported feelings. Similarly, bad feelings are associated with the difficulty girls encounter in studying. Indeed, those who have experienced bad feelings at home during the lockdown are more likely to have found difficulties in studying during the school closure.

When asked how they see their future, the girls expressed a willingness to continue their studies, and only 22% of girls want to keep working.  Only 11% expressed the desire to marry.

One of most common ways to measure well-being by measuring  income poverty. The idea behind such a measure is that if one can determine how much money flows into a household, it is possible to assess whether the household is able to meet basic needs.

Researchers commonly use income as a proxy for material well-being when they analyze trends in poverty and inequality and the antipoverty effects of government programs. Families with low income are less able to meet their basic needs and hence are more likely to experience material hardships, defined as demonstrating unfavorable economic circumstances (Ouellette et al., 2004).

An alternative way to evaluate adolescents’ material well-being by assessing their material hardship. First developed by Mayer and Jencks (1989), this approach dispenses with proxies like income and instead seeks to directly measure the material well-being of households. The intuition behind material hardship is straightforward: when demands on a household’s resources (income, savings, credit, favors, social assistance benefits, and so on) exceed available resources, the result is some form of material hardship (Rodems and Shaefer, 2020). Moreover, while income poverty and material hardship are correlated, most of those who report being in material hardship are found above the poverty line (Rodems, 2019).

There are many advantages to using measures of material hardship. First, the idea of material hardship gets to the core of what most people mean by poverty. Second, material hardship analysis gives the opportunities to tailor aid measures, such as food stamps, housing subsidies, and subsidies for heating, in addition to the geographically varying and non-profit-based direct service provisions. In addition to measuring of income poverty, researchers should assess the well-being of the population in the very terms by which it is conceived of by policymakers: material well-being. According to Heflin et al. (2009), four broad categories of hardship have emerged in literature: food hardship, fiscal hardship, health hardship, and housing hardship. Huang et al. (2010) found that food insecurity correlates with less optimal parental health, which in turn can have negative consequences for children. Financial hardship can put a strain on parental relationships, which in turn can lead to antisocial behavior among children (Scaramella et al., 2008). Material hardship is also associated with social problems, at least in children who live in rural areas (Mosley and Miller, 2004; Kainz et al., 2012; Conrad et al., 2019).

The analysis of material hardship conducted among girls in this study aims at understanding these potentially causal relationships. The three dimensions of socio-economic life of girls have been taken into consideration. Within each dimension, the analysis measured the level of hardship experienced by girls during the Covid-19 pandemic: social life, family and physical health.

The results show that, in total, more than 35% of girls experienced serious or very serious hardship during the pandemic. This was due mainly to a decrease in well-being in the social dimension. Furthermore, 100% of girls who have experienced a serious or very serious hardship are 15 years or older. Among those who experienced very serious hardship, 80% live in Africa (Kenya or South Sudan), and 64% live in rural or remote areas. Among those who experienced serious hardship, 43% live in Africa, 39% live in Asia, and 18% live in South America. Across all the countries, the concentration of girls suffering from serious hardship is the highest in rural and remote areas.

The congregations’ school programs might have the most evident beneficial effect on the level of the girls’ participation at school. In fact, 99% of girls involved in school programs are currently enrolled in school, while 91% of girls not involved in school programs are currently enrolled in school.

In order to evaluate the mitigating impact of the congregations’ school programs, we considered the same index of hardship introduced in the previous section. The (inverse) hardship index percentages by involvement in school programs. Again, we notice that higher percentages of girls not involved in school programs have suffered serious or very serious hardship. In contrast, girls involved in school programs reported a relatively higher probability of the absence of hardship during the pandemic.

Research and key findings

In the qualitative phase of the research project, 314 adolescent girls aged 10-20 years participated into the study from Peru, Ecuador, South Sudan, Kenya, India and Nepal. The objective was to complement the findings to the quantitative study that was carried out as the first phase (December 2021-February 2022). It aimed at illustrating quantitative findings and providing a space for girls to voice out their experience and their concerns in their own words.  The aim of the research was to find what was the unique experience of girls during and after the pandemic and how have they adapted to new challenges brought by the subsequent waves of the pandemic and the restart of services after two years.

For the qualitative phase, the research team developed three tools: one Focus Group Discussion (FGD) topic guide for girls of both age groups (10 to 14 years and 15 to 20 years), one topic guide for individual interviews (girls aged 10 to 20 years) and one topic guide for service providers (key informant interviews).

All three tools explored the impact of the pandemic on several dimensions including girls schooling, girls’ health including reproductive and sexual health as well as mental health, relationships, decision-making and aspirations.

All participating countries led Focus group with girls following the above inclusion criteria (age and school status), totaling 34 Focus Group Discussions overall.

In addition, country teams were provided the opportunity to carry out individual interviews with girls and key informant interviews with service providers (8 individual interviews and 10 KII have been included in this analysis from both India and Nepal) – to enrich and add to the existing data.

Data collection was led by a team of thirty qualitative researchers in June 2022 and lasted about 3 weeks.

Education

As adolescent girls from around the world experienced important disruptions in their education during the pandemic period, the learning loss has been huge for girls living in LMICs. Not only have they had to face exceptional circumstances but their access to learning was seriously compromised by the lack of access to online education services and technology. This has resulted in an acute sense of learning loss, a declining self-esteem and sense of self-worth, general disillusion and missed opportunities. Inequalities during COVID were considered particularly harsh as girls shared a lot of concern for their peers living in families and communities with less access to services including online schooling.

As a result of household poverty and sudden unemployment resulting from government restriction measures, girls have had to take charge of parental duties including increased work, household chores and care (taking care of older and sick parents, siblings) which has further compromised the continuity of their education. This shows how gendered are the effects of the crisis on adolescent girls worldwide, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable areas.

Health

The pandemic had important negative consequences on girls’ health including mental health and reproductive health. The prolonged lock down led to acute sense of loneliness, increased stress because of survival needs and intense social isolation.

Many girls from impoverished families and communities experienced menstruation poverty and didn’t have access to the essential reproductive information and services that would have helped them go through this transition. Many girls shared stories of feeling helpless and unable to care about themselves in that crucial phase of adolescence, many girls told us that they missed on sexual education too.

A lack of parental supervision and access to these essential adolescent focused services meant that many girls fell into the trap of teenage pregnancy. Others felt compelled to engage in sexual and commercial exploitation in order to  meet their basic needs, exchanging sex against food, menstruation pads and other basic hygiene items such as soap.

Violence and gender discrimination

Commonly reported forms of violence that were most cited during and after COVID were online abuse and harassment, domestic violence (including experiencing violence at home and witnessing violence). This was called on international media as “the shadow pandemic” and received a lot of attention worldwide. Girls told us stories of parental disputes, conflict between siblings as well as children witnessing parental fighting. They also reported an increased use of physical punishment as a means of discipline. They narrated sexual violence and incest within families and online (as girls were more exposed to social media, they became a prey to online predators).

Other harmful consequences of the pandemic that has been widely reported was the surge in child marriages, exploitation and discrimination against girls which brought significant harm in the lives of adolescent girls worldwide. Girls provided examples of parents marrying of their daughters for economic reasons, or friends who were married off to their boyfriends after getting pregnant. Girls themselves sometimes highlighted that marriage was a way of escaping either a violent or conflicting home as well as poverty – and sometimes a better short-term alternative to school which was unaffordable.

Survival and work

A number of girls stressed that the government-imposed restrictions and the following loss of jobs led to decreasing food availability at the household level. In India and Nepal, girls mentioned that although the food was not as diverse and the diet as rich as before COVID-19 which resulted in a lack of vitamin intake. In Kenya and Ecuador, girls revealed acute need for food that created high tensions and conflict in families. Many girls entered informal employment at the expense of their own education and long-term prospects.

Relationships

One of the highest impacts on girls’ sense of connection to others was the loss of friends during COVID due to school closure. The reality that many girls found themselves in was that they couldn’t rely anymore on the practical and everyday support of their peers and that brought them down and contributed significantly to decreasing morale. They also mentioned deteriorating family relationships as a source of stress and pain.

Agency and decision-making

Progress towards girls’ rights including decision making and agency have been seriously altered as many girls felt they had to give up their education or they had to give up some dreams. The pandemic has significantly reduced girls access to opportunities. However, it has also led way to other ideas.

Services

Many girls were deprived of services vital to their health and development, such as reproductive, food and education and social services. However, many also survived on outside support, including community support but also government and NGOs aid. In Congregations’ operational areas, the support that Congregation’s programs provided was highlighted as being extremely helpful and contributed to many families to cope and survive despite the extreme hardship.

Positive insights

However, the pandemic was not only negative for girls. Among the secondary positive benefits that some girls have highlighted was an increased knowledge of online tools and platforms, a closer relationship to families and loved ones, news interests and new ideas.