Coping with COVID-19: Gender responses on Economic and Social sustenance through ICT use

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the economic, educational, religious, social and wealth being of people globally. This is as a result of lockdown imposed by government of various nations to cope the spread of the virus. This study focused on investigating activities that sustained people during the lockdown. A mixed method design was adopted for the study. The sample of the study was made up of 310 participants. An online questionnaire with a reliability of 0.903 was used for data collection. The result of the study revealed the frequently used ICTs during the lockdown , the activities which sustain people during lockdown, the economic and social implication of use of ICT during the COVID-19 lockdown. The identified challenges to utilization of ICT during lockdown include: lack of adequate infrastructure for E-learning, inconsistent power supply, inadequate cash to buy data, and limited/unsteady internet access. It was therefore recommended that government should implement policies that will enhance quality of data network and also reduce the cost of mobile data subscription and other forms of subscriptions.