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The children of covid- 19

Idrees Kahloon: United States policy correspondent, The Economist, WASHINGTON, DC

The gap between rich and poor will widen

The repercussions will linger for years

MOST SPECIES of social scientists—be they economists, sociologists or psychologists—
agree that adversity in childhood spells difficulty in adulthood. Though children are
mercifully much less likely to die of covid-19, the impacts of increased poverty, family
job loss and disrupted schooling will not be so easily avoided.

In-person learning is superior to virtual instruction, which, more than mere nostalgia,
explains its persistence. This is even more the case for poor children without good
internet connections or personal laptops, whose families cannot pay for supplemental
tutoring, and for whom schools provide free meals and stability. Analysts at McKinsey, a
consultancy, calculate that if schools resume in-person instruction in January 2021 (and
that now looks unlikely in many cases), the average student would suffer seven months
of lost learning. Black students would lose even more: ten months. Poor students would
forego more than an entire year.