The Gendered Impacts of COVID‐19 on Adolescents' School Attendance in Sub‐Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

As the COVID‐19 pandemic led to a historic shut‐down of schools across the world, including in sub‐Saharan Africa, there were widespread concerns that girls would be disproportionately affected. This study analyses the school attendance of adolescent girls and boys during the COVID‐19 pandemic, drawing on high frequency phone surveys for six African countries that collected individual‐level data on children's school attendance during the pandemic (from early 2020 to mid‐2022). We do not find systematic widening of gender gaps during the pandemic. If anything, gender gaps seem to have narrowed in some countries. Further in‐depth analysis shows that while being a descendant of the household head, having parents with at least primary education and having above‐median household wealth were associated with a higher probability of school attendance among adolescents before the pandemic, these factors became less strongly associated with school attendance in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. These patterns are consistent with a weakening of the association between traditional socioeconomic advantages and school attendance during the COVID‐19 crisis.