Abstract
Our article explores how intersecting crises, sociocultural norms around gender, age, household and community and broader political and economic shifts are affecting youth transitions. We draw on qualitative virtual research with 138 young people in Ethiopia and Jordan undertaken between April and August 2020. COVID-19 is exacerbating ongoing crises and gender inequalities in Ethiopia and Jordan and foreclosing opportunities for youth transitions. In Ethiopia, the pandemic has compounded the precarity of young people who have migrated from rural to urban areas, often to locations where they are socially marginalised. In Jordan, the confinement of young people affected by forced displacement to their households with extended family during pandemic-related service closures augments existing perceptions of an extended ‘waithood’—both psychosocially and economically. In both contexts, conservative gender norms further entrench the restrictions on adolescent girls’ mobility with consequences for their opportunities and wellbeing. This article makes an important contribution to the literature on gender, migrant youth and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic by showing how multiple crises have sharpened the social and political (im)mobilities that already shaped young men and women’s lives in Ethiopia and Jordan and the consequences for their trajectories to adulthood.
Highlights
In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the socioeconomic crisis associated with the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has exacerbated many of the challenges facing mobile populations
Our study responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on qualitative virtual research with young people in Ethiopia and Jordan undertaken between April and August 2020
Girls’ experiences of the pandemic in relation to three interconnected impacts: first, how young people perceive that gender relations and norms have affected dynamics around mobility at the individual and household level; second, the impact of the pandemic upon opportunities for education and work sought by young people and how they have contended with these changes; and last, we look at the gendered impact of these shifts on young people’s wellbeing
Summary
In many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the socioeconomic crisis associated with the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has exacerbated many of the challenges facing mobile populations. Research and policy have begun to draw attention to the gendered impact of these intersecting crises, but there has been little attention to how crises have exacerbated vulnerabilities among groups of young people for whom mobility has previously generated opportunities to expand capabilities. This article explores how young people are being affected by multi-layered crises induced by the global pandemic, as well as displacement and migration for work. Our study responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on qualitative virtual research with young people in Ethiopia and Jordan undertaken between April and August 2020. This work is nested within a broader longitudinal mixed-method study of gender and adolescence across LMICs affected by humanitarian and political crises, which have resulted in mass displacement, both within and across borders
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