IMPACT OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN POLICY ON HEALTH AND EDUCATION SERVICE UPTAKE OF WORKERS IN GWAGWALADA, ABUJA, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown policy on the welfare of workers in the formal and informal sectors in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja, Nigeria, during the COVID-19 period using health and education services as case study. The study was motivated by the fact that the outbreak had a negative influence on both formal and informal workers’ well-being; nonetheless, concluding that the lockdown had an equivalent impact on both formal and informal sector workers in Gwagwalada Area Council without an empirical investigation may not have been reasonable enough. Thus, the need for this study to make a comparative analysis between formal and informal sector workers. For empirical purpose, independent two-sample t-test were used to compare perceptions of the two sectors regarding the effects of daily COVID-19 cases and the attendant lockdown stringency measures on health and education services uptake of workers in the two sectors understudy. A survey of 363 respondents was undertaken between the formal and informal workers in Gwagwalada Area Council of Abuja, Nigeria, to examine the effects of the pandemic lockdown policy measures on the uptake of education and health services. The study found that the informal sector workers were more severely affected than the formal sector during the lockdown. To address these challenges, the study recommends, among others, massive loans and grants for business owners with little or no interest rate to cushion the effects of the COVID-19.