Chapter 2 Proposal
2.1 Research topic
In this project, we would like to take a closer look at how women’s lives have been impacted by the pandemic, and if relevant issues of gender equality have been exacerbated. To approach this problem, we would adopt a number of different perspectives. Our first concern is the direct impact of the disease on women’s health, so we would like to investigate if women were more likely than men to be infected with, to be hospitalized for, to be admitted to ICU for, and to die of the disease; we would also like to check the gender distribution of health workers infected with or died of the disease; in addition, we would compare if women had the equal chance to be vaccinated as men. Our second concern is the influence of pandemic on women’s safety; for example, we would like to answer whether the number of domestic violence and street attacks on women have had a significant rise. Moreover, we are concerned about the pandemic’s impact on women’s socioeconomics conditions, like if women are more likely than men to be laid off, underpaid, or not paid in the context of the pandemic. If possible, we would also like to gather data on and analyze the pandemic’s impact on women’s reproductive health and access to education.
2.2 Data availability
2.2.1 WHO COVID-19 Detailed Surveillance Data Dashboard
We obtained the data from the COVID-19 Detailed Surveillance Data Dashboard of World Health Organization. WHO collected the data through official reporting to WHO, the website Our World in Data, the website FIND, and official public websites not officially reported to WHO.
The dataset contains demographic information including country, sex, and age, in addition to the daily or weekly numbers of testing, cases, hospitalizations, discharged cases, and deaths for both the general population and health workers for over 200 countries from January 2020 to the present date. Some of the data have been updated daily while the others have been updated weekly. The data is in the format of a csv file and is comprised of mostly numeric data and some categorical text data.
We would manually download the dataset in csv format from the website and import it to RSutdio.
2.2.2 COVID-19 Sex-Disaggregated Data Tracker
We obtained the data from the website of The Sex, Gender and COVID-19 Project produced collaboratively by Global Health 50/50, the African Population and Health Research Center and the International Center for Research on Women. The project has the largest database of sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 in the world.
The dataset contains sex-disaggregated cumulative numbers and proportions of testing, cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, deaths, and vaccinations reported every two weeks for over 200 countries from April 2020 to June 2022.
The organizations collected sex disaggregated data on the indicators available from the WHO COVID-19 Detailed Surveillance Data Dashboard, and data for vaccinations from WHO Coronavirus Dashboard were integrated to the dashboard every month. Manual data collection was carried out every alternate month to supplement data on the indicators not available from WHO dashboard such as ICU admissions. The organizations paused manual data collection in July 2022 due to the decline in global reporting of COVID-19 data, so the final round of manual data collection was conducted in June 2022 (“Notes on the Data”).
We would manually download the dataset in csv format from the website and import it to RSutdio.
Data Source: https://globalhealth5050.org/the-sex-gender-and-covid-19-project/dataset/
2.2.3 Survey on Violence Against Woman During COVID-19
This set of data comes from the Rapid Gender Assessment surveys specifically focused on violence against women and COVID-19 (VAW RGAs) conducted by United Nations Women in 13 countries from April to September 2021. The data was collected by conducting face-to-face interviews along with remote surveys during the lockdowns. UN Women led this study in collaboration with Ipsos, with support from national statistical offices, national women’s machineries and a technical advisory group of experts to guide the overall survey process (“Measuring the Shadow Pandemic: Violence against Women during Covid-19” ).
Each observation in the survey dataset is a female individual’s responses to the survey questionnaire. The survey questions are composed of three parts: questions on interviewee’s demographic information, health condition and personal safety. The data is in the format of a csv file and is comprised of mostly categorical text data and some numeric data.
We would manually download the dataset in csv format from the website and import it to RSutdio.
Data Source: https://data.unwomen.org/publications/vaw-rga
2.2.4 Survey on Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19
The data was collected by UN Women through rapid gender assessments (RGAs) conducted in at least 52 countries between March 2020 and March 2021. The assessment focused on five areas of concern: 1) economic activities and resources; 2) unpaid domestic and care work; 3) access to goods and services, 4) emotional and physical wellbeing; and 5) relief measures (“Rapid Gender Assesments on the Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19”). Both man and woman were interviewed in the survey, so the dataset is helpful in analyzing whether women and men are experiencing the pandemic differently.
Each observation in the survey dataset is an individual’s responses to the survey questionnaire. The survey questions are composed of questions on interviewee’s demographic information and the five areas of concern mentioned above. The data is in the format of a csv file and is comprised of mostly categorical text data and some numeric data.
We would manually download the dataset in csv format from the website and import it to RSutdio.
Data Source: https://data.unwomen.org/rga
2.3 References
“Measuring the Shadow Pandemic: Violence against Women during Covid-19.” UN Women Data Hub, UN Women, 24 Nov. 2021, https://data.unwomen.org/publications/vaw-rga#_dashboardFilterRGA.
“Notes on the Data.” Global Health 5050, The Sex, Gender and COVID-19 Project, Apr. 2020, https://globalhealth5050.org/the-sex-gender-and-covid-19-project/notes-on-the-data/.
“Rapid Gender Assesments on the Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19.” UN Women Data Hub, UN Women, 16 Dec. 2021, https://data.unwomen.org/rga.