Domestic Burdens Amid Covid-19 and Women’s Mental Health in Middle-Income Africa
利用肯尼亚和尼日利亚的女性纵向数据，发现疫情中女性家务时间增加、就业减少，家务负担加重与焦虑和抑郁症状相关，而个人能动性和子女数量影响其影响程度。
This article analyzes two longitudinal datasets (October – December 2020; April 2021) of 1,000 and 900 women in Kenya and Nigeria, respectively, alongside in-depth qualitative interviews with women at risk of changes to time use, to study two pandemic issues: women’s substitution of paid for unpaid work and how these shifts compromise their mental health. Women devote more time to domestic care (30–38 percent), less time to employment (29–46 percent), and become unemployed (12–17 percent). A rise in domestic work is correlated with depressive (Nigeria) and anxiety symptoms (Kenya and Nigeria). Women with greater agency (Kenya) and fewer children (Nigeria) are less likely to report a domestic burden or loss in paid activities. Social protection programs may fill the void of assistance traditionally provided by informal networks in the short term, while campaigns shifting norms around household work may preserve women’s economic participation in the long term.HIGHLIGHTS Women in Kenya and Nigeria reported increases in domestic labor amid the pandemic.Women’s agency is negatively associated with the domestic burden and a reduction in paid activities in Kenya.Women in households with two or more children face greater domestic burdens and losses in paid activities in Nigeria.Increases in domestic work render women more likely to be anxious (Kenya and Nigeria) and depressed (Nigeria).