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SOC206

ASSIGNMENT COVER PAGE

PROGRAMME: SOCIOLOGY
LEVEL: 2.2

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
PROJECT

SURNAME NAME(S) REG. NO.

Research Topic
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As a group, we decided to project our focus on how the existing Covid-19 pandemic has had an
impact on the socio economic rights in Zimbabwe since 2020 up to the current year 2021 which
we are in. The Covid-19 pandemic has had far reaching impact on the socio-economic
livelihoods and well-being of a large section of the population in Zimbabwe having far-reaching
effects on the right to education and social well-being of children and making it a risk of
widening the emerging and growing inequalities in education. Closure of schools during
lockdown took away the protective sanctuary for children offered by schools, leaving them
exposed to sexual exploitation and abuse, including drug abuse, and there was reportedly an
increase in child marriages during the lockdown. Moreover, this pandemic has affected millions
of people dependent on the informal economy and contract and casual workers in the formal
sectors, with women being the worst affected. Closure of informal economy businesses,
marketplaces and vending sites deprived them of their sources of livelihoods and incomes.
Therefore, in our research, we took the chance of asking each and every member of our group,
their pertain concerning the existing covid-19 pandemic which is affecting many families. The
views of this topic which we had chosen have been elaborated in detail in the next chapter of our
research.

Research Title

How Covid-19 has affected the Socio economic rights on the Zimbabwean societies

Literature Review
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.The COVID-19 pandemic has had far reaching impact on the socio-economic livelihoods and
well-being of a large section of the population in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Peace Project
commissioned a research study to establish the manner and extent to which socio-economic
rights were impacted on by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Sunday Mail (2020) , the
government announced a raft of measures to contain the spread of the virus, to cushion
businesses, and to provide social protection to vulnerable groups affected socially and
economically. This study shows that the measures, which have not been fully implemented
except for lockdowns, have not successfully mitigated the impact of COVID-19 on socio-
economic livelihoods and well-being of many people. The study covers the right to education,
the right to health, the right to decent work (formal and informal, the right to food, child rights
and women’s rights.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects on the right to education and
social well-being of children. According to a ZIMSTATS PICES report (2020), a majority
of children as of July 2020 were not able to engage in online or distance learning and
the worst affected were those in rural areas where only one quarter of children engaged in
distance learning. This has the risk of widening the emerging and growing inequalities in
education. Further supported by Moyo (2020) who explains that the closure of schools during
lockdown took away the protective sanctuary for children offered by schools, leaving
them exposed to sexual exploitation and abuse, including drug abuse, and there was
reportedly an increase in child marriages during the lockdown. The impact of COVID-19 on the
health delivery system, which was already underfunded and dilapidated, undermined the right to
health for many people. Public health facilities faced several challenges which affected their
capacity to provide basic and emergency healthcare during the pandemic, for example, the
lack of equipment, limited intensive care unit beds and ventilators, lack of PPE, staff
shortages, poor remuneration and working conditions for frontline health workers, among
many other challenges. Some health facilities were closed after COVID-19 infections were
reported, such that several people failed to access critical health services such as maternity
services for pregnant women, access to life-saving support in case of emergencies, and
access to medication to chronic patients suffering from HIV/AIDS or Tuberculosis.
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According to Murisa (2021) Covid-19 affected millions of people dependent on the

informal economy and contract and casual workers in the formal sectors, with women
being the worst affected. Closure of informal economy businesses, marketplaces and vending
sites deprived them of their sources of livelihoods and incomes. Vendors and small-scale food
producers reported disruptions in the supply chains, low sales, high rates of produce
leftovers and spoilages (for those selling perishable goods) which threatened profits, and a
decline in number of customers visiting vending sites or informal markets. There were high
job losses in the retail and other service sectors, as well as reduction or disappearance of wages
for most contract and casual workers.

COVID-19 also affected food consumption and food and nutrition security as households
lost incomes, while food prices went up due to the inflationary shocks induced by the
pandemic. Thus, the right to food and food security was severely undermined. More than half of
urban households and two thirds of rural respondents surveyed by ZIMSTAT between
March and July 2020 reported that they had to skip meals because of lack of resources to obtain
food. COVID-19 disproportionately affected women, as cases of gender-based violence were
reported to have increased exponentially from the onset of the lockdown. Women’s access to
sexual and reproductive health services, access to pre and post-natal care, neonatal care,
among other healthcare services unique to their needs, was significantly disrupted. Some
women failed to access family planning services, leading to unplanned pregnancies. Unpaid
domestic and care work increased exponentially during the lockdown, as women and girls were
confined at home and were expected to take up more responsibilities of maintaining the
home and providing care to the rest of the family. The Zimbabwe Peace Project recommends a
number of bold and urgent actions to be taken by the Government, development agencies
and Civil Society Organizations to ensure that socioeconomic rights are restored, and service
delivery and social protection systems are built back better and equitably in the aftermath of
the COVID-19 pandemic. These include urgently releasing funds earmarked for social
protection; strengthening systems and mechanisms for detecting and preventing Gender
Based Violence and child abuse; disbursing financial rescue packages to the informal
economy; implementing an education rescue plan; expanding food assistance programmes so
that they can reach excluded groups; organizing vulnerable and marginalized groups so
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that they can claim their socio-economic rights by engaging authorities and in some cases
through public interest litigation; and monitoring and reporting violations of socio-economic
rights during the period of lockdowns and thereafter.

Objectives

This research investigated how life before Covid-19 was, comparing it to how it is now.
This research pursued to explore how Covid-19 had really affected various households within
our Zimbabwean societies.
The research also examined how households have been negatively affected by the pandemic,
not forgetting how the pandemic has also been a blessing in disguise to some.
It also aimed to raise awareness to those in authority so that they may provide state welfare to
those in need of it.

Research Tools

Various tools had been used throughout the research process of this project. Online surveys and
telephone (Structured and semi-structured) interviews, were used to extract deep and primary
data which was free from bias. Online surveys were crucial in extraction of latent effects of
Covid-19 since they are not easily identifiable. Moreover, interviews had been carried out as a
way of communicating with the households concerning the effects of Covid-19, their lifestyle,
their statistical household number, how are they surviving and on other things necessary in this
study. Online surveys on WhatsApp and Facebook had been of great importance and very
necessary since people agreed to participate in group discussions together about Covid-19
affecting socio economic rights in societies.

Data collection
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i. Gender Based Violence

Due to loss of income and the bread winners failing to provide enough food collected data
concerning Gender Based Violence showed that among all 20 households we studied 12 families
confirmed issues of violence since most of the workers lost their jobs due to pernicious days of
Covid-19 during our online surveys and telephone interviews. Another 5 households claimed to
be less affected as they had access to financial resources from backyard businesses and the other
3 households confirmed to be not affected.

ii. Unable to access education services

Among the 20 families of our study, 10 received our calls saying that their children had been
greatly affected in their education despite Radio lessons which had been conducted by the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Cooperation in conjunction with the ministry of Primary and Secondary
Education. 6 households confirmed that they were less affected since their children were and are
still attending to radio extra lessons. Another 4 households said they had their private teacher
who academically took care of their lovely children thus they were not affected.

iii. Loss of employment and food shortages

A survey on all 20 families to which our group interviewed on calls, WhatsApp and Facebook
platforms shows 14 family bread winners lost their jobs, 4 of them just stopped due to fear of the
pandemic and 2 of them were employed. This led to food shortages in almost 14 families though
4 of them reported an improved life style due to a number of opportunities that they encountered
during the pandemic.

However, a number of households received Covid-19 allowance and some donations both from
the public sphere (government) and from private players though others argued that donation was
politicalised and could not benefit all the 20 families due to corruption and other issues. The
Mangunyu family and other 13 families lost their valuable movable property due to Covid-19.
They sold some of their possessions in a bid to cover up food shortage circumstances.

iv. Loss of life

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It is well known that Covid-19 claimed a lot of lives all over the world since 2020. After the
research we found out that five of the 15 households who participated were greatly affected as
they lost their dearest relatives and mainly the breadwinners. One of those participants was Mr
Zinyama who said that the death of his first born son to covid-19 affected the family mentally
when we interviewed him through a phone call. The other 5 participants said that they were less
affected by the loss of life due to Covid-19 and according to them they lost their customers and
another female from those participants said that she heard that one of her customers lost her life
though she failed to pay up her debt before her death and the lady said that it was a loss to her
which affected the socio economic rights.

Effect Affected Less affected Not Affected

Households Households Households
Gender B. Violence 12 5 3
Unable to access 10 6 4
education service
Loss of employment and 14 4 2
food shortage
Loss of life 15 5 0

Table 1.1

The table above shows the Effects of Covid-19 that we noticed in our research.

?
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The above is a column bar chart to demonstrate statistical data of the effects of covid 19 on
socio economic rights within 20 households that we had studied.

DATA ANALYSIS

Given the information we obtained from online interviews of 20 households, we have noticed
as a group that 12 members have been victims of violence and this has been a result of conflicts
which rose due to the loss of jobs triggered by the pandemic for instance, women would be
anticipating men to play the breadwinning role providing the family with food and other
necessities. Meanwhile, men will be expecting the same from their partners. This has resulted
in tensions among individuals who found themselves fighting for this reason that couples have
been failing to meet up survival requisites of their families. According to the data we captured,
only o ly 5 members have been less affected by gender based violence as they had alternative
access to financial resources, thus they were able to meet survival necessities. To illustrate,
men and women indulged in backyard businesses such as sewing and doing part time jobs. This
led to the reduction of gender based violence. As a group we also encountered a scenario
where we recorded only 3 households who were not affected by gender based violence during
the lockdown probably because they were distanced from their partners and had something to
occupy themselves.

• 15 ×1 00 = 60% (GBV percentage)

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20

• 5 × 100 = 25% (Less affected households)

20

• 3 ×100 =15% (Greatly affected households)

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The systematic collection of data clearly revealed that GBV has a high percentage rate than that
of the affected and less affected households which constituted lesser rates. Hence, the covid
19 pandemic had immense effects on socioeconomic rights within households of Zimbabwe.

Pertaining to the implementation of lockdown, our research as a group demonstrated that the
pandemic had far-reaching effects on the right to education and social wellbeing of the children
making it a risk of widening the emerging and growing inequalities education. With online
interviews, we noticed that the closure of schools during the lockdown took away protective
sanctuary of children leaving them exposed to sexual exploitation and abuse. Among 20
households we studied, 10 of them were unable to access education services due to lack of
requisites such as cell phones and data bundles. Other 6 households confirmed that their
children were less affected since they were at least attending to radio extra lessons. Another 4
households claimed that they were not affected since they had their private teacher who took
care of their children.

In our research study, it had been noticed that the pandemic attained a certain height in
number of cases for unemployment and hunger in our country. We contacted research basing
on calls and Facebook interviews and found out that about 14 households were completely
affected by hunger. This is probably because individuals had been struggling to afford buying
food from supermarkets since they had lost their jobs which was their source of income. Hence,
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this triggered food shortages. Though, 4 other households reported an improved lifestyle due
to a number of opportunities that they encountered during the pandemic such as donations
from the state. The other 2 households proved they have not been affected as they were still
going to work.

Since 2020 it s well known that the covid 19 has claimed lives of many people which is a
tremendous loss. Among the households who participated we found out that about 15
households were greatly affected as they lost their beloved ones and most tragically their
breadwinners. The other 5 households claimed that they were less affected by loss of life
caused by covid 19 as they had lost their customers and another woman from those 5
participants she heard one of her customers lost her life though she failed to pay up her debt
before her death. Then she concluded that it was a loss to her which affected the socio
economic rights.

The table below is similar to the first introduced table and this would provide case figures for
analysis.

Effect Affected Less affected Not Affected

Households Households Households
Gender B. Violence 12 5 3
Unable to access 10 6 4
education service
Loss of employment and 14 4 2
food shortage
Loss of life 15 5 0

Analysis table of affected households

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Conclusion

To conclude, through the above research it has been clearly revealed that Covid-19 as a
pandemic had been acting as a blessing to some families whilst with other families it was
regarded as a curse. As we conducted our research as a group, we noticed that this covid-19 has
led to the enforcement of lockdowns which brought families together thereby creating a strong
social bond within families. Some are now using their talents in order to earn a living rather than
depending on jobs. However, to some the situation seemed different and some struggled to earn
a living, some had been victims to gender based violence because of conflicts caused by the job
losses and other problems within the family institution. According to the information which we
recorded, students also had been affected by the virtual learning which demanded more data
which their parents failed to provide with. . These are some of the major effects of Covid-19 on
socio economic rights within zimbabwean Households that this project managed to come up with
from the research that we did as a group.

APPENDEX
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COVID-19 Questionnaire used for the research

i. What is your name, age, sex?

ii. Are you free to talk to me about Covid-19 and its effects to your Household?
iii. What are the challenges you are facing due to the Pandemic and what do you do for a
living to escape these problems?
iv. Are there disputes of violence in your marriage or in your house?
v. Have you lost a family member or a relative from covid 19?
vi. Did your family received on-going support from other external family members?
vii. Did your children receive support from school?
viii. Have you ever received any support from other organisations and if it is a yes who was it
from and what did it involve?
ix. Did your children struggle to understand and cope with covid-19 lockdown?
x. As a family what do you suggest for the government to do on order to help families that
are struggling during this pandemic?

REFERENCES