Young Lives India releases its first COVID-19 Phone Survey Headlines Report

2024-04-18 01:16:34 News & Society

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10 August 2020 ? Young Lives India releases its first COVID-19 Phone Survey Headlines Report: Listening to Young Lives at Work in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Young Lives phone survey aims to investigate the short and medium-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health, well-being, transition to the labour market and education trajectories of young people in our study, tracked since 2001 and now aged 18 and 25. This brief report provides a first look into the data collected during the first of three phone survey calls (June-July 2020) and highlights some of the key emerging findings.

Young people gained information about COVID-19 mainly from the internet.
Misconceptions about the symptoms of COVID-19 remains high with only 15 percent able to correctly identify the three most common COVID-19 symptoms.
Only 7 percent of the respondents did not leave their homes during the lockdown. More respondents from low HEP and rural households left home for work and basic needs.
COVID-19 cases were higher among poorer households. Only 32 percent of those displaying symptoms were tested.
The economic impact of the pandemic and lockdown measures hit informal workers and self-employed workers hardest.
Young women bore the brunt of increased care responsibilities.
About 90 percent of households in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana received Government support but 16 percent households reported food insecurity during the lockdown.
The pandemic interrupted education and e-learning was an option available for only 28 percent of 18-years-old respondents.
The education of young people in rural areas was most likely to suffer particularly due to the digital divide.
High levels of anxiety was recorded, with 89 percent of the respondent expressing nervousness about the current circumstances.

Towards the end of March 2020, India went into a nationwide lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which lasted for 75 days. During this lockdown, only essential services were allowed. Various government measures were subsequently introduced aiming to boost health infrastructure, extend financial assistance to States, support the poorest segment of the population, trace and map reported COVID-19 cases, and a large mass media campaign on social distancing and personal hygiene was undertaken. On June 8th 2020, ?Unlock 1.0? was announced with the relaxation of some lockdown measures, with the intention of easing the plight of migrants and stemming the growing economic loss, followed by Unlock 2.0 (July 1-31st) and Unlock 3.0 (effective Aug 1st).

The Young Lives (YL) phone survey took place between 10th June and 15th July 2020 and reached a total of 2,750 young people (1,863 of Younger Cohort respondents aged 18, and 887 Older Cohort respondents aged 25 years old).2 This corresponded to 98% of the sample located in the most recent tracking in December 2019 and for whom a mobile phone number was available.

The Second and Third Survey Calls will be conducted in the coming months.

About Young Lives

Young Lives is an international study of childhood poverty, following the lives of 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Vietnam since 2002. These children, across two cohorts, the Younger Cohort born in 2001-02 and the Older Cohort born in 1994-95, are now aged 18/19 and 25 years respectively.

In India we follow the lives of 3,000 children in two States, produce research and generate evidence to help policymakers design programmes that make a real difference to children and their families.

Our innovative approach to poverty research is enabling us to collect a wealth of information not only about children's material and social circumstances but also their perspectives on their lives and aspirations for their futures, set against the social and environmental realities of their communities.