Post-Pandemic Home-Based Work in Cities of the South Lessons from Enugu, Nigeria

Abstract

Income-generating activities in residential zones known as Home-Based Enterprises (HBEs) are becoming more prevalent as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The informal sector, including HBEs, started expanding in cities of the Global South in the 1980s during the Structural Adjustment Programme and has engendered debates among practitioners and researchers. The International Labour Organization Home Work Convention, C177 of 1996, and the inclusion of home work in national accounting because of its contribution to Gross Domestic Product have emboldened researchers to argue for a supportive policy framework. Yet, this phenomenon is still opposed by contemporary planning practices in many Global South cities. The lockdown during the pandemic which aff ected every aspect of life across the world revealed the indispensability of home-based enterprises: 'work' that had to be kept functional was done from home. Will the implications of lockdown and post-pandemic home-based work lead to a paradigm shift in the Global South from the rigid colonial planning standards to eff ective and dynamic planning standards that are based on contemporary urban realities? The aim of this study is, therefore, to examine the implications of post-pandemic home-based enterprise for the built environment in Global South cities using Enugu, Nigeria as a case study. The mixed research design was adopted for the study, while data were collected through questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Stratified random sampling was employed to select three (one low, medium, and high density) from the existing thirty-three formal neighbourhoods in the study city – Enugu. Systematic sampling was adopted to select the sample size among the residents and the professionals were selected purposively. The result of the principal component analysis reveals that there are six major impacts of HBEs on the built environment in Enugu, namely: entrepreneurship skills; pressure on infrastructure; improved living standards; discrimination; in fluence on work–life balance; and limited growth potential. Major lessons from the study include:adaptation of innovative urban planning; enhancement of local economic development; gender and policy issues.This research is signi ficant as it will contribute to the literature on COVID-19 in the Global South and connect the post-COVID-19 recovery experience from a core Global South city to possible, effective actions that can mitigate future challenges in comparable cities and contexts.