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61,000 parents share how school and ECD Center closings take a toll on their mental health

October 9, 2020 por Brunilda Peña de Osorio - Juan Manuel Hernández Agramonte - Emma Näslund-Hadley - Laura Ochoa Foschini - Guisselle Alpizar - Olga Namen - María Loreto Biehl Leave a Comment


With the sudden halt to face-to-face education, parents across the world juggle distance and hybrid education models. In addition to being parents and often full-time employees, overnight they suddenly also became full time educators and classroom managers. The additional burden on parents comes at the cost of decreased mental health.

In Latin America, the ministries of education in El Salvador (MINED) and Costa Rica (MEP) and the institute of family wellbeing in Colombia (ICBF) joined forces with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to explore parents’ experiences of emergency distance education. Beyond information about the functionalities of online learning platforms and phone-based support, the survey of more than 61,000 parents paints a picture of a mental health toll on parents who scramble with distance and hybrid education in addition to other challenges of the pandemic. Some 85% of caregivers in the survey report at least one symptom of distress, calculated based on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-R).

Although the mental health of all age groups takes a toll during the current pandemic, mothers with young children appear to be particularly affected. This group shoulders the burden of distance education, while often caring for infants and toddlers.  We find that 84% of mothers of young children are involved in their children’s distance education, compared with only 6% of fathers.

The survey data suggests that additional responsibilities with no signs of relief appear to negatively affect the wellbeing of mothers. Women who are the main breadwinners report higher levels of overall distress compared with other women with young children. Similarly, the more children a woman has, the higher her overall level of distress, progressively increasing form 53% in one-child households to 61% in five-child households. Economic stressors, including loss of employment and reduction in income, also increase the distress of women. For example, in Colombia, the level of stress of women is 13% higher in households with job or income losses due to the pandemic compared with women in other households.

The infographic was designed by Juan Manuel Hernandez Agramonte, winner of the visualization on inequity contest from the IDB.

Mothers report more mental health problems than fathers, resulting in vexing gender mental health gaps in sadness (28%), lack of appetite (27%), overall distress (24%), fear (19%), exhaustion (17%), and insomnia (15%). Costa Rica has the largest gender gaps in mental health, including differences of 35 and 37% in lack of appetite and exhaustion. The overall mental health increases from 16 to 21% when fathers are not involved in the distance education of their children.

It is essential to support mothers in this challenging time, not just to decrease their stressors, but to avoid that their distress trickle down to the next generation. Previous international research reveals that parental stress has long-term implications for children’s brain development.   What steps can be taken to mitigate stressors and promote the social, emotional, and mental health of parents? How do we involve fathers in their children’s distance education? Share your comments with us in the section below, or comment on Twitter

—

We thank Kelly Montaño, Rayssa Ruiz y Carlos Urrutia from IPA for their excellent research assistance; and Ekizache Foxua for the graphic design.  


Filed Under: Public health and nutrition, Public health and nutrition Tagged With: anguish, anxiety, coronavirus, covid-19, depression, insomnia, mental health, parents, psychiatry, psychology, school, stress

Brunilda Peña de Osorio

Psychologist with experience in human rights, gender, and initial education. In her role as National Director of Initial Education at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of El Salvador, Brunilda has developed systems for child and adolescent protection, early stimulation and initial education for children. Brunilda is the author of the national curriculum for early childhood and has experience in assessments of child health services, and development of teacher training methodologies at the initial education level.

Juan Manuel Hernández Agramonte

IPA's Deputy Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. He previously served as Country Director for IPA's Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay country programs. Before working for IPA, he was a Policy Manager for J-PAL, where he worked on developing government initiatives to incorporate evidence into policy decisions. One of the main projects he led was the creation of the Ministry of Education of Peru's Education Lab (EduLAB, now known as MineduLAB) for which he was the coordinator. He has also worked as a Research Coordinator for IPA in Honduras, Peru and Paraguay and in UNICEF, IOM and ILO. He holds an MSc in International Development Studies from the University of Amsterdam and a BA in Sociology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Emma Näslund-Hadley

Emma is a Lead Education Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington DC, where she directs and collaborates in the design and execution of a wide range of education sector projects and reforms throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Emma’s research spans pre-primary through secondary education, focusing on discovering learning processes in the classroom that promote children’s development of conceptual, generalizable knowledge in mathematics and science. Previously she held positions with the European Parliament and the United Nations. Emma has a master’s degree in international economics and finance from the University of Linkoping and a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

Laura Ochoa Foschini

Technical Deputy Director of Early Childhood Services at ICBF, with more than 10 years of experience in the design and implementation of social and territorial policies. She has a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University, a Masters of Science in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration from Universidad de la Sabana.

Guisselle Alpizar

Olga Namen

Researcher at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). Her areas of interest are Development Economics, Education Policy Analysis and Early Childhood Development. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

María Loreto Biehl

Education Senior Specialist at the Interamerican Development Bank Office in Argentina.

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