In this presentation, Elizabeth Bryan, Senior Scientist in the Environment and Production Technology Division at IFPRI, explores the potential impacts of Covid-19 on rural women and the challenges of reaching women through phone surveys.

1. Gendered Impacts of Covid-19 in
Developing Countries
Elizabeth Bryan (E.Bryan@cgiar.org), Senior Scientist, IFPRI
10 June 2020

2. Gender Climate Change and
Nutrition (GCAN) Framework
▪ The impact of shocks and stressors on
people are not direct but follow different
pathways and are influenced by different
factors:
o Exposure and sensitivity
o Resilience capacities
o Decision-making context
o Responses
▪ Resilience is dynamic: well-being outcomes
influence future resilience capacities
▪ The Covid-19 pandemic triggered both health
and economic shocks
▪ Resilience to these unanticipated shocks
requires mainly absorptive capacity and
immediate coping responses

3. GCAN Framework:
Health and economic shocks from Covid-19
may result in the following gendered
responses/outcomes:
▪ Loss of control over income
▪ Asset dynamics
▪ Change in labor allocation, increase in care
burden
▪ Changes in mobility, implication for risk of
exposure
▪ Food insecurity, changes in dietary diversity
▪ Conflict

4. Questionnaire
▪ Direct impacts:
o Has anyone in the hh been sick in the last 7 days?
o Has the hh lost income due to Covid-19?
▪ WASH environment (resilience capacity)
▪ Loss of control over income (bargaining power)
▪ Changes in migration of hh members and remittances
▪ Asset, savings, borrowing, direct transfers (coping measures)
▪ Change in labor allocation, increase in care burden (coping measures/outcomes)
▪ Changes in mobility to buy food, seek medical care, fetch water/fuelwood etc., (coping
measures/outcomes)
▪ Food insecurity, changes in dietary diversity (coping measures/outcomes)
▪ Conflict—work together to solve problems, fear of partner (outcomes)

5. Survey Implementation
▪ Selected countries with previous face-to-face surveys that had collected
phone numbers: Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana (USAID) and India
(BMZ)
▪ Working with partners on the ground or phone survey companies with local
call centers
oTradeoffs in terms of response rate, sensitivity/knowledge of subject
▪ Developed a common questionnaire (20-30 mins long), 5-6 rounds over 6
months, each round lasting <2 weeks
▪ Will sample half women, half men from the original survey and follow the
same respondent across rounds
▪ Programmed in SurveyCTO (or proprietary software of survey company)

6. Potential Challenges to
Reaching Women with
Phone Surveys
Gender gaps in mobile phone
ownership and data use
Systematic bias: older, poorer,
women less likely to have
phones
Source: https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/GSMA-The-Mobile-Gender-Gap-Report-
2020.pdf

7. Potential Challenges to Reaching Women with Phone Surveys
▪ Privacy
oCan respondent be alone when answering?
oRequired to use speakerphone?
oHow to identify, note the restrictions without putting respondent in
jeopardy
▪ Time
oFinding convenient (less inconvenient) times to call—may differ for men,
women
oLimits on length of calls

8. Potential Ways to Address Gender Challenges
▪ Build on existing surveys where contact, rapport is established
▪ Contact through trusted women’s groups
▪ Use female enumerators
▪ Cautions against sensitive questions, especially re. domestic violence
▪ Word questions so that answers would not reveal much to those who
overhear
▪ Check use of speakerphone (indicator of disempowerment?) and omit
sensitive sections if others can hear questions