INTERACTIVE ARTICLE: Gendered Effects of School Closures during the COVID-19 Pandemic

 Hello delegates! In this blog post, we’re going to explore a paper discussing the gendered effects of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is clearly relevant to our first topic of conference, which discusses restoring and improving girls’ education during post-covid recovery. The article can be found here in The Lancet by Katarzyna Burzynska and Gabriela Contreras. 


In this paper, the researchers discuss how school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic may bolster gender gaps in education due to two main issues affecting girls in vulnerable areas. The first issue relates to sexual and reproductive health aspects like increased risk of sexual exploitation, pregnancy, and (forced) marriage. The second issue involves socioeconomic aspects, referring to how girls face a disproportionate increase in unpaid household work. This can lower the value of girls’ education and increase their dropout rates.


The writers call for “a gendered perspective in developing policy responses by tackling the sexual and reproductive health and socioeconomic issues”. Additionally, governments are called upon to collect data specifically about “non-paid housework and childcare responsibilities frequently ignored when investigating the consequences of child labour”. This perspective would be vital to addressing the health and socioeconomic issues girls might face during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as collecting data to quantify the effects.



Some key terms that this paper mentions include: Sustainable Development Goals, sexual and reproductive health, non-paid housework and childcare responsibility.


Comment below on your thoughts on the researchers’ call for a gendered perspective in developing policy responses. How exactly can this perspective be further expanded upon in tackling the two main issues that the paper cites (i.e., in terms of specific policy responses), and what facets of this problem could this paper be missing or failing to address? 


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