Gender Differences in Household Coping Strategies for COVID-19 in Kenya
Understanding how different households cope with COVID-19 among a vulnerable population is important for the policy design aiming at relieving hunger and poverty in a low income setting. This paper uses original household data from five waves of a...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/861451646668280669/Gender-Differences-in-Household-Coping-Strategies-for-COVID-19-in-Kenya http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37111 |
| Summary: | Understanding how different
households cope with COVID-19 among a vulnerable population
is important for the policy design aiming at relieving
hunger and poverty in a low income setting. This paper uses
original household data from five waves of a phone survey
conducted between May 2020 and June 2021 in Kenya (sample
size 31,715) and investigates the gender differences in
household coping strategies during the COVID-19 shock. It
finds that female-headed households are less likely to cope
by selling assets or taking loans, compared with male-headed
households. Instead, femaleheaded households rely more on
social networks to cope. No difference in coping by reducing
meals is observed across these two types of households. This
paper documents that the reasons behind the gender
difference include that female-headed households are poorer,
and they are more likely to rely on friends and family to
cope with shocks even prior to the COVID-19 shock. The
findings suggest that widowed and divorced women are in high
need of relief programs, and governments should provide
easily accessible loans to avoid negative impacts in the
long term from households selling assets. |
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