Impact of COVID 19 on livelihoods of female entrepreneurs in Marondera urban

Abstract

Urban livelihoods in Zimbabwe were heavily impacted by the emergence of COVID-19 which was accompanied by several lockdown measures which suffocated the livelihood strategies among the low-income group of the economy. This situation is more pronounced in the high-density suburbs where most female breadwinners are employed in the informal sector. COVID-19-induced lockdowns aggravated the potential of small-scale female entrepreneurial projects to cushion the affected families, forcing them to skip meals, default on rental and user fees payment to the city council as well as fail to meet medical bills among other livelihood outcomes. Using the sustainable livelihood framework, this study foregrounds that the advent of COVID-19 in Marondera urban stifled the sustainability of female entrepreneurial projects. Amongst the 12 respondents who were purposively selected to participate in this study, findings reveal that 80% of the projects collapsed due COVID-19 restrictions. The study therefore recommends that the government and other non-state actors should introduce safety net measures to enable the affected entrepreneurs to recover their lost income.

Keywords

• urban livelihoods
• COVID-19 pandemic
• female entrepreneurship
• poverty trap